
dass " H B 1 Cp 
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MANUAL 



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SOCIAL SCIEN"Ci]; 

BEING A CONDENSATION OF THE 

"PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE" 



H. 0. CAREY, LL.D, 



KATE MOKp: A.N.l\ ^^}^^ 



"The universe i« a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God. Ilimself tue jf- 
fectiou of harmony, He has Impressed upon every soul, as His image, its own espe"-.': 
harmony. Numbers, figures, the stars, all nature indeed, harmonize with the myste; ie* 
111 religion." — Kepler. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

HENRY CAREY BAIRD & CO., 

INDIISTRHL PUBLI.SHKRS, 

810 Walnut Street. 

1879. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j ear 1864, by 

HENRY CAKET BAIRD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastora 

District of Pennsylvania. 



6. \. iEORGi:, STUREOTIPER. 
CCUJNS, FBINTS&. 



PREFACE. 



Why do misery and crime exist ? Why, when so large a 
portion of the earth is yet unoccupied, are human beings 
suffering for food, and crowded together in unwhi.iesome 
dens, to the sacrifice of comfort, decency, and health ? Why 
does one nation export food of which its own members are 
in need, while another sends its manufactures throughout 
the world although hundreds of thousands at home are 
scarcely clothed ? Why are nations or individuals seen 
elbowing each other, so to speak, for room to live ? Why 
are we called to witness everywhere an uneasy jealousy 
among communities, each watching with an unfriendly eye 
the expansion of the other — the strong ever encroaching on 
the rights of the weak ? Why should the chief of European 
nations wage a ceaseless " warfare"* against the industry 
and prosperity of the world at large ? In short, what is the 
cause of the measureless woe that exists in this fair world 
which its Creator pronounced to be " very good" ? 

Who that has ever reflected on human affairs has not asked 
"himself these questions, has not at some period of his life 
sought to solve these problems ? It is not, however, in this 
hitherto favored land that such subjects press with their full 
weight on heart and mind, adding a heavy item to individual 
cares and troubles : it is in Europe, especially in the British 
Isles, — that portion of the earth in which man's power over 
nature seems to be most complete, — that the immense mass 
of human suffering, the breadth and depth of which no 
imagination can measure, most bewilders the understanding 
while sickening the very soul. 

Is there, then, no law regulating human affairs ? When 
every portion of this vast universe is ordered by unerring 

* Seo Parliamentary Report on the Iron Manufacture, paste 199. 

(iii) 



IV TREFACE. 

wisdom are the concerns of God's highest work alone left to 
the blindest chance ? Is there any principle, broad, simple, 
comprehensive, which can account for all this confusion, 
and reconcile these contradictions ? If so, where is it to be 
found,' to whom has it been revealed ? While Physical 
Science has had its Newton, Physiology its Harvey, Philo- 
sophical Anatomy its Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Palaeontology 
its Cuvier, Chemistry its Lavoisier — has the Newton of 
Social Science not yet appeared ?* 

An answer to this question will be vainly sought in 
European literature. The greatest of English economists, 
Adam Smith, while setting forth much of valuable truth, 
failed to reach the fundamental principle, and erred on many 
important points. England, however, has since his day far 
retrograded both in theory and practice ; and in the mon- 
strous doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school, which 
attribute human suffering to error of an all-wise Creator, 
has initiated that which she herself so fitly terms " the 
dismal science," the "philosophy of despair;" while her 
literature for well nigh half a century bears constant witness 
to the existence of a need which it cannot supply, each 
writer testifying of evils the cause and remedy of which 
none appear to see. Nor have the writers of the continent 
been more successful, none of them having attained to any 
really fundamental truth. 

The editor of the following volume having, like so many ' 
others, long vainly sought light on this most interesting 
subject, first found it in the " Past, Present, and Future" of 
H. C. Carey. The principles there contained are enlarged, 
expanded, and corrected by the test of subsequent events in 
his " Principles of Social Science ;" a work which, it is 
believed, no one capable of understanding it can carefully 
study without feeling that the Newton of Social Science ha? 
indeed appeared. 

It may, however, be asked : — If this be so, if the truth on 
this highest of sciences has indeed been discovered, how is 

• See Eistoire Naturclle G^n^rale, by Isidore- Geoffkoy Saint 
HiLAiEE, vol. i. p. 2344* 



PREFACE. V 

it that mankind have not hailed it with a burst of enthusiastic 
weU^onie ? that when it has been now for seven years before 
the world, it is as yet so little known ? What, however, 
is the reception ever accorded to a great and fundamental 
truth ? Is it not, that it is at first simply neglected because 
unrecognized ? A few earnest minds, indeed, perceive and 
embrace it heartily ; but the majority brush past it, so to 
speak, unconscious of its presence. When by degrees it 
makes way and gains for itself a hearing, it is met by a 
storm of opposition. Some minds simply dislike what is 
new ; others hate to be disturbed in their ordinary modes of 
thought; the self-love of some is wounded by finding that 
the}' know nearly nothing of what has been their life-long 
study, and they are unwilling to submit to become learners 
where they have so long been teachers ; while others again 
find their interests or their influence imperilled by the new 
idea. In the darker ages of the world's history, persecution, 
imprisonment, or death, was commonly the reward of the 
discoverer; now it is simply opposition or misrepresentation, 
when not even calumny. When at length its opposers are 
unable to resist the evidence presented of its truth, they next 
turn round and say : — Well, granted that it is so, this is not 
new ; it is to be found in the pages of such or such an 
author, ancient or modern. And true it is, that th'^se who 
now in the full light of a truth look back to earlier ages to 
search for it, will often detect its first faint glimmerings in 
the works of those who were themselves utterly unconscious 
of the scope of the idea that had for a moment flashed across 
their minds, as quickly disappearing, and leaving the darkness 
as complete as it had been before.* At leogth, however, the 
time arrives when the new truth finds its place in the intelli- 
gence of the age : it is discussed in philosophical works, set 
forth in elementary treatises, and finally is adopted as the 
basis of public instruction. Does its discoverer at length 
meet with the honor due? Rarely even then. Few know 
the source whence the idea had been derived. Ask them 
and they will answer: "I never thought otherwise; I 

* See Life, Labors, and Scientific Doctrines of Etienne Geoffmij Saint 
Hilai t, p." 260. 



VI PREFACE. 

learned the tlieory at college ; or I derived it from such 
or such a work." 

It is under the impression that the most certain mode o.f 
spreading a knowledge of truths which lie at the root of all 
national progress, is by making them a part of the instruc' 
tion of the young, that the editor has ventured, encouraged 
by the approbation of the author, to undertake a work 
more suited to a masculine than to a feminine intellect. 
This Manual of Social Science, it will be perceived, is little 
more than a selection from the great work above referred to 
the words of which have been as far as possible preserved, 
although the vast variety of facts and illustrations which 
give to it such a living interest have necessarily been sacri- 
ficed to brevity. The object in view will account for the 
free use of italics, which, though perhaps an offence against 
taste, every experienced teacher knows to be useful in 
awakening the attention and understanding of the youthful 
student. 

In the years that have now elapsed since Mr. Carey's 
work was written, and since his first volume was given 
to the world, there have been many changes, and most 
especially in the facts presented by these United States, but 
the editor has deemed it best to give them here as they had 
been there presented, believing that the careful student may 
find in them the causes of those greater changes which are 
now in course of progress. 

That this volume may be of some use in impressing upon 
the rising generation that the true principles of Social 
Science are in perfect accordance with the great precepts 
of Christianity, and may thus help to hasten the reign of 
universal peace and justice upon earth, is the earnest wish 
and prayer of the Editor, 

KATE McKEAN. 

Cumberland, Md,, 
August 2Qth, 1^64. 



PREFACE. 



XOTE. 



Believing that many of her readers might be pleased to 
stxidy the gradual development of the many new ideas pre- 
sented in this work, the editor gives the following extract 
from Mr. Carey's preface : 

" Of the principles here enunciated, some now [1857] make 
their a])pearance for the first time ; whereas, others were first 
published twenty years ago.* Since then, the latter have 
reappeared in another work, by a distinguished French econ- 
ouust,f which — its circulation having been extensive — has 
been read by thousands who have never seen the volumes in 
which the same ideas had previously been published. Find- 
ing here a repetition of what they had read elsewhere, and 
given without acknowledgment, those persons would, most 
naturally, be disposed to suspect the present author'of having 
wrongfully appropriated the property of another ; when, in 
point of fact, he was himself the real owner. This would 
be an unpleasant state of things ; and, as the only mode by 
wliich it can be avoided, he deems it well to make, on this 
occasion, a brief statement of the order of discovery of the 
various new ideas contained in the following pages. 

Tlie theory of value, as now given, was first published in 
1837. Being very simple, it was very comprehensive, em- 
bracing every commodity, or thing, in reference to which the 
idea of value could exist — whether land, labor, or their pro- 
ducts. This was one step towards establishing the univer- 
Bality of natural laws, the value of land having been ascribed 
by all previous economists to causes widely different from 
those which gave value to its products. J 

* Carey : Principles of Political Economy. Pliila., 1837-1840. 

f Bastiat : Harmonies Eronomiques. Paris, 185(t. 

I "Carey, and after him Bastiat, have introduced a formula d 
posteriori, that I believe destined to be universally adopted; and it 
is sireatly to be regretted that the latter should have limjted hliii- 
seif to occasional indications of it, instead of giving to it the 
importance so justly given by the former. In estimating the equi- 
liln-ium between the cost to one's self and tlie utility to others, a 
thousand circumstances may intervene ; and it is desirable to know 
if there be not among men a law, a principle of universal applica- 
tion. Supply and demand, rarity, abundance, etc., are all insnlh- 
cient, and liable to perpetual exceptions. Carey has remarkedfand 
with great sagacity, that this law is the labor saved, the cost of 
reproduction— mi idea that is, as I think, most felicitous. It api)ear3 
to me that there cannot arise a case in which a man shall deter 



7111 PREFACE. 

Consequent upon this was the disco\cr3^ jf a general law 
of distribution, embracing all the products of labor, whether 
that applied to cultivation or conversion — to change of place 
or form. According to the theories then most generally 
received, the profit of one was always attended with loss to 
another, rents rising as labor became less productive, and 
profits advancing as wages retrograded — a doctrine that, if 
true, tended to the production of universal discord ; and 
that, too, as the natural consequence of a great law instituted 
by the Deity for man's government. 

Directly the reverse of this, however, was the law that was 
then published, and now is reproduced, proving, as it did, 
that both capitalist and laborer profited by every measure 
tending to render labor more, while losing by every one that 
tended to render it less, productive — and thus establishing a 
perfect harmony of interests. 

Thoroughly persuaded of the truth of the laws then pre- 
sented for consideration, the author felt not less certain that 
the really fundamental law remained yet to be discovered ; 
and that, until it could be brought to light, many of the 
phenomena of society must continue unexplained. In what 
direction, however, to seek it, he could not tell. He had 
already satisfied himself that the theory presented for con- 
sideration by Mr. Ricardo — not being universally true — had 
no claim to be so considered ; but it was not until ten years 
later that he was led "to remark the fact, that it was univer- 
sally false. The real law, as he then saw, was directly the 
reverse of that propounded by that gentleman, the work of 
cultivation having, and that invariably, been commenced on 
the poorer soils, and having passed to the richer ones as 
wealth had grown and population had increased. Here was 
the great fundamental truth, of which he before had thought 
and the one, too, that was needed for the perfect demonstra- 

mine to make an exchange, in which this law will not be found to 
apply. I will not give a quantity of labor or pains, unless offered 
in exchange an utility equivalent ; and I will not regard it as 
equivalent, unless I see that it will come to me at l^ss cost of labor 
than would be necessary for its reproduction. I regard this formula 
as most felicitous ; because, while on one side it retains the idea 
of cost, which is constantly referred to in the mind, on the other it 
avoids the absurdity to which we are led by the theory, whicli pre- 
tends to see everywhere a value equivalent to the cost of produc- 
tion; and, finally, it shows more perfectly the essential justice 
that governs us in our exchanges." — Fekrara : Biblioieca deW 
Econoinista, vol. xii. p. 117. 



PREFACE. iX 

tion of tlie truth of those he previously had published. Here, 
too, was further proof of the universality of natural laws, 
the course of man, in reference to the earth itself, being thus 
found to have been the same that we see it to have been, in 
reference to all the instruments into which he fashions the 
several parts of the great machine. Always commencing with 
the poorest axes, he proceeds onward to those of steel : always 
commencing with the poorer soils, he proceeds onward to 
those richer ones which yield the largest return to labor, the 
increase of numbers being thus proved to be essential to 
increase in the supply of food. Here was a harmony of 
interests directly opposed to the discords taught by Mr. 
Malthus. 

This great law was first announced now ten years since.* 
While engaged in its demonstration, the author found himself 
constantly impelled to the use of physical facts in illustration 
of social phenomena, and hence was led to remark the close 
affinity of physical and social laws. Reflecting upon this, he 
soon was brought to the expression of the belief, that closer 
examination would lead to the development of the great fact, 
that there existed but a single system of laws — those insti- 
tuted for the government of matter in the form of clay and 
sand, proving to be the same by which that matter was 
governed when it took the form of man, or of communities 
of men. 

In the work then published, the discoveries of modern 
science, proving the indestructibility of matter, were, for the 
first time, rendered available to social science — the difference 
between agriculture and all other of the pursuits of man 
having been there exhibited in the fact, that the farmer was 
always employed in making a machine, whoso powers in- 
creased from year to year ; whereas, the shipmaster and the 
wagoner were always using machines, whose powers as 
regularly diminished. The whole business of the former, as 
there was shown, consisted in making and improving soils, 
his powers of improvement growing with the growth of 
wealth and population. To fully develop the law of the 
perpetuity of matter in its bearing upon the law of popula- 
tion was, however, reserved for the author's friend, Mr. E. 
Peshine Smith, numerous extracts from whose excellent little 
Manual will be found in the present volume. 

The great and really fundamental law of the science — the 

* The Past, the Present, and the Future. Philad., 1848. 



X PREFACE. 

one required for the demonstration of the identity of physical 
and social laws — still however remained to be discovered ; 
but it is now, as the author thinks, given in the second 
chapter of the present volume. In the third will be found 
the law developed by Mr. Smith. The fourth gives that of 
the occupation of the earth, as published ten years since — ■ 
those of value and distribution, published ten years earlier, 
following, in chapters five and six. The order here required 
for their proper exhibition is thus, as the reader sees, pre- 
cisely the inverse one of their discovery, thus proving the 
truth of the idea, that first principles are always last to be 
discovered. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I.— OF SCIENCE. 

PAQI 

J 1. Bacon's distribntions aud partitions of the tree of knowledge. Roots and 
tranche'' of the tree 26 

g 2. Mftliod of disco\ery the same in all departments of knowledge. British econo- 
mi:<ts reciguize not the real man of society, but the artificial man uf their own sys- 
tem. All sciences an<l their methods embraced in Sociology. Analysis leads to 
synthesis. Science one and indivisilile. The econonn'cal relations uf man require 
raatheinaticiil fornnilai to render them into systematic trnths. The societary laws 
undetermined. Tenn.< of the theorists insufficient and equivocal 27 

^3. Social Science, the constituent and concrete of all others, waits upon their 
development fur its own. Its impediments. The metapliysi;-al must be replaced by 
the methodical study of man. Physical and social laws indivisible in the study of 
society, and all the phenomena of the subject constituting but a single science 33 

CHAPTER II. — OF MAN — THE SUBJECT OP 80CI.\l SCIENCE. 

g 1. Association essential to the existence of man. As the jilanets gravitate to each 
other, Man tends towaids his fellow-man. Local centres balance and distribute the 
masses in order and harmony. Centralization and decentralization analogous, and 
alike necessary, among planets and societies. Illustrative history of the nations. 
Freedom of association maintained by the balancing attractions. The welfare of the 
individual, and of the aggregate, dependent upon tlieir freedom 37 

1 2. Individuality of man proportioned to the diversity of his endowments and activ- 
ities, i'ree association developes individuality. Variety in unity, and peace in 
diversity. The balance of worlds, and of societies, maintained by counter-balance 42 

2 3. Responsibility of man measured by his individuality. Historic illustrations. 
A.s,sociation, individuality, and responsibilitj', grow and decline together 45 

i i. Man a being of growth and progress. Progress is motion requiring attraction, 
depending upon reciprocal action, and implying individuality and assixiiation. Pro- 
gress is in the ratio of these conditions. The laws of being the same in matter, man, 
aud communities. Defioitioa of Social Science 46 

CHAPTER III. — OP INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OP MANKIND. 

2 1. Quantity of matter not susceptible of increase. Susceptible of being changed 
in place and in form. Constantly takiog new and higher forms — passing from the in- 
organic to the organic, and ending in man. Man's power limited to the direction of 
the natural forces. Law of endless circulation 48 

g 2. Preparation of the earth for the reception of man 60 

j( 3. Man, in common with other animals, a consumer of food. His mission, on this 
earth, so to direct the natural forces, as to catise the soil to yield larger supplies of the 
c<immoditie8 required for his use. Conditions upon which, alone, those supplies can 
be augmented 61 

g 4. Law of the relative increase in the numbers of Mankind, and in the supply of 
food 66 

g 5. Malthusian law of population. Teaches, that while the tendency of matter to 
assume the lowest forms, augments in an arithmetical ratio otdy, when it seeks to 
atutin the highest form, that tendeucy is found existing in a geometrical one 66 

CH.VPTER IV. — OF THE OCCUPATION OP TITE E.ARTH. 

i 1. Limited power of man, in the hunter and the shepherd state. Movements of 
the isolated settler. Connncnoes always with the pooler soils, \\ith increase of num- 
bers he acquires increaseof foice, and is enabled to command ib«' services of the richer 

7 



S CONTENTS. 

vkas 
8( ils— theiioc nh+aining larger supplies of food. Gradual passage .'rom being the slave 

of natuvu, towards becoming nature's master 58 

§ 2. Mr. Ricardo's theory. Based upon the assumption of a fact that never has ex- 
isted. The law, as proved by observation, directly the reverse of the theory by him 

propounded 63 

I 3. Course of settlement in the United States C8 

I 4. Course of settlement in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America 69 

§ 5. Course of settlement in Great Britain 71 

? 6. Course of settlement in France, Belgium, and Holland 72 

^ 7. Course of settlement in the Scandinavian Peninsula, Russia, Germany, Italy, 

the islands of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Egypt 73 

g 8. Course of settlement in India. Mr. Ricardo's theory that of depopulation and 
growing weakness ; whereas, the real law is that of growing association, and aug- 
monting power. 74 

CHAPTER V. — OF THE OCCUPATION OP THE EARTH — CONTINUED. 

^ 1. Decrease of numbers compels the abandonment of the richer soils, and drives 
man back to the iroorer ones. Causes of the decline of population. The supply of 
food diminishes in a ratio greater than that of man 77 

§ 2. Real facts directly the reverse of those supposed by Mr. Ricardo. Progi-ess of 
depopulation in Asia, Africa, and various parts of Europe 79 

g 3. Exhaustion of the soil, and progress of depopulation in the United States. With 
every step in that direction, man loses value, and nature acquires power at his 
expense , SO 

CHAPTER VI.— OF VALUE. 

g 1. Origin of the idea of Value. Measure of value. Limited by the cost of repro- 
duction , 82 

g 2. Idea of comparison Inseparably connected with that of value. Commodities 
and things decline in value as the power of association and combination becomes more 
and more complete. Man grows in value as that of commodities declines 84 

g 3. Diminution in the proportions charged for the use of commodities and things, a 
necessary consequence of diminution in the cost of reproduction. Definition of value 86 

3 4. What are the things to which we attach the idea of value? Why are they 
valued? IIow much is their value? 87 

g 5. Erroneous view of Bastiat in relation to the idea of value. Its adoption as the 
foundation of a new politico-economical school 88 

g 6. Inconsistencies of Adam Smith and other economists, in reference to the cause 
of value. Phenomena in lelation to value in land exhibited in Great Britain, the 
United States, and other countries 90 

§7. Law of distribution. Its universal application ; 94 

g 8. All values merely the measure of the resistance offered by nature to the pos- 
session of the things desired 95 

§ 9. All matter susceptible of being rendered useful to man. That it may become 
so, he must have power for its direction. Utility the measure of the power of man 
aver nature. Value, that of nature's power over man 96 

CHAPTER VII.— OF WEALTH. 

? 1. In what does wealth consist ? Commodities, or things, not wealth to those who 
have not the knowledge how to use them. First steps towards the acquisition of 
wealth always the most costly and the least productive. Definition of wealth 9S 

? 2. Combination of action essential to the growth of wealth. The less the ma- 
chinery of exchange required, the greater the power of accumulation. Wealth grows 
with the decline in the value of commodities, or things, required for man's uses and 
purposes 100 

g 3. Of positive and relative wealth. Man's progress in the ratio of the decline in 
the value of commodities, and the growth in his own 102 

g 4. Material character of the modern political economy. Holds that no values are 
to be regarded as wealth, but those which take a material form. All employments 
regarded as unproductive that do not result in the production of commodities or things 103 

g 5. Definition of wealth now given, in full accordance with its general signification 
of happiness, prosperity, and power. Grows with the growth of the power of man to 
associate with his fellow-man 104 



CONTKNTS. 9 

PAO« 
CHAPTER VIII. — OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 

J 1. In «-hrtt society consists. The words society and commerce but different nicdeg 
of e.vpiessing the same idea. That there may be commerce, there must be differences. 
CombiiiHtions iu society subject to the law of definite proportions 106 

^ 2. Every act of association an act of motion. Laws of motion those which govern 
the societary movement. All progress in the direct ratio uf the substitution of con- 
tinued for intermitted motion. No continuity of motion, and no pDwer where there 
pjcist no differences. The more numerous the latter, the more rapid is the Sucietary 
niLivement, and the greater the tendency towards acceleration. The more rapid the 
Diotiun, the greater is the tendency towards dimmution in the value of commodities, 
and increase in that of man 107 

J 3. Causes of disturbance tending to arrest of the societary motion. In the hunter 
state brute force constitutes man's only wealth. Trade commences with the trafiic in 
bones, muscles, and blood — the trade iu man 110 

g 4. Trade and commerce usually regarded as convertible terms, yet wholly different 
— the latter being the object sought to be accomplished, and the former only the in- 
strument used for its accomplishment. Commerce grows with decline iu the power 
of the trader. War and trade regard man as the instrument to be used; whereas, 
commerce regards trade as the instrument to be used by man 113 

J 5. Development of the pursuits of man the same as that of science — the passage 
being from the abstract to the more concrete. War and trade the most abstract, aud 
therefore first developed 116 

2 6. Labors required for effecting changes of place, next in the order of development. 
Diminish in their proportions, as population and wealth increase 118 

§ 7. Labors required for effecting mechanical and chemical changes of form. Require 
a higher degree of knowledge 118 

§ 8. Vital changes in the forms of matter. Agriculture the gieat pursuit of man. 
Bequires a large amount of knowledge, and therefore late in its development 119 

§ 9. Commerce last in the order. Grows with the growth of the power of association 120 

j 10. The more perfect the power of association, the more does society tend to take 
a natural form, and the greater its tendency to durability 120 

§ 11. Natural history of commerce. Subjects, order, succession, and co-ordination, 
of the classes of producers, transporters, and consumers of industrial products, classi- 
fied and illustrated. The analogies of natural law universal 121 

g 12. Erroneous idea that societies tend, naturally, to pass through various forms, 
ending always in death. No reason why any society should fail to become more pros- 
perous from age to age 123 

g 13. Theory of Mi\ Ricardo leads to results directly the reverse of this — proving 
that man must become more and more the slave of nature, and of his fellow-men 124 



CHAPTER IX.— OF APPROPRIATION. 

g 1. War and trade the characteristics of the early periods of society. Necessity for 
the services of the warrior and the trader diminishes with the gi-owth of wealth and 

population 128 

^ 2. Close connection between war and trade visible in every page of history. Their 

centralizing tendencies. Their power diminishes with the growth of commerce 127 

g 3. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Attica 128 

§4. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Sparta 130 

g 0. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Carthage 130 

I 6. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Rome 131 

i 7. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa..-. 131 

\ 8. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Holland 132 

§ 9. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Portugal 133 

§ 10 Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Spain »32 

g 11. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of France 134 

j 12. The higher the organization of society, the greater is its vigor, and the better 
its prospect of life. The more numerous the differences, the higher is the organiza- 
tion, and the greater the commerce. Increase in the proportions of soldiers aud 

traders tends towards centralization, and moral, physical, and political death ISf 

J 13. Modern political economists teach the reverse of this, fii-rors resulting from 
using the same words, to express ideas that are wholly different IV 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. — OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 

PAQk 

? 1. Difficulty, in the early period of society, of effecting changes in the place oi 
matter. The necessity fur so doing the chief obstacle to coiumerce. Decline in the 
proportion of the societj' required for effecting such changes. Accompanied by rajiid 
growth of commerce, and corresponding growth of power to obtain better means of 
transportation 137 

g 2. The more perfect the commerce among men the greater the tendency towards 
removal of the remaining obstacles to association. Man's progress, in whatsoever 
direction, one of constant acceleration 138 

^ 3. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor that of transportation. 
The farmer, near to market, always making a machine : the one distant therefrom 
always destroying one 139 

§ 4. Manure, the commodity most needed by man, and the one that least bears trans- 
portation. The less the quantity of labor given to effecting changes of place, the 
greater that wliich may be given to production. Power to maintain commerce grows 
with this change of proportions 140 

^ 5. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of association. That power grows 
with every diminution of the necessity for effecting changes of place 142 

CHAPTER XI. — OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED. 

g 1. Colonial Policies of Greece, Spain, and France. That of Britain the first in which 
we meet with prohibition of association among the colonists. Object of the prohibition, 
that of producing a necessity for effecting changes in the place of matter. The policy 
barbaric in its tendencies, and hence it Is, that it has given rise to the theory of over- 
population 143 

g 2. British policy looks to the dispersion of man, and to increase in the proportion 
of society engaged in trade and transportation. Views of Adam Smith in opposition 
to this system 146 

§ 3. British colonial system, as exhibited in the West India Islands 146 

g 4. Theory of over-population an effort to account for facts artificially produced, by 
aid of supposed natural laws 151 

CHAPTER XII. — OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED. 

§ 1. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of Portugal 152 

§ 2. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of the Turkish Empire 153 

§ 3. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of Ireland .•.- 156 

g 4. Real cause of the decay of Ireland 160 

CHAPTER XIII. — OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED. 

§ 1. Local action, and local combination, conspicuous throughout the history of Hin- 
dostan. Then- disappearance under the British rule 163 

J 2. Commerce sacrificed at the shrine of trade. Annihilation of Indian manufac- 
tures. Its ruinous effects 166 

g 3. Waste of capital, and destruction of the power of accumulation 167 

g 4. Diminution in the security of person and property correspondent with tLa ex- 
tension of British rule, and with the growing centralization 168 

2-5. Trivial, value of private rights in the land of India. India a paying country 
under its native princes. Its steady deterioration under the system which looks to 
increasing the necessity for the trader and transporter's services 189 

g 6. Review of the phenomena observed in the four gi'eat communities, above re- 
ferred to. Differing in all other respects, they are alike in the fact, that they have 
been deprived of all power to diversify their employments, and have thus been forced 
to increase their dependence on the transporter and the trader 170 

^ 7. Destructive effects of a growing necessity for the services of the trader. British 
policy looks solely to the increase of trade. Constant waste of capital in all the 
-countries subject to the system 172 

g 8. Orig*' of the idea of over-population 173 

CHAPTER XIV. — OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN FORM. 

I. — Of CJiemical and Mechanical Clianges. 
^ L Fol effecting changes in the forms of matter, a knowledge of the propertiee of 



/ CONXr.NTS. 

nwtter is rcqui' u ,.. ,^ 

tran,-!|)oit;iti.>i!'"T(l'be work of conversion more concret. uid .-.pccial tlian (hut uf 
obtaining pow^'l", theielbre, later in its development. Instruments required iiir 
tiites wealth,-^ 'command the services of the natural forces. That power consti- 
creasing that •••/version dimini.-ihes the labor required for transportation, wliile in- 
from increas'-'erh may be given to production. Economy of human effort resulting 

J 2. Stjciet^^iility of conversion i; i 

l)roceed onv'iSJu)tion tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, when permitted to 
natural force«ind undisturbed. Ettbrts to obtain a monopoly of the control of tin- 

{; 'i. Rude '^quired in the work of conversion \", 

I'lienomeija racter of J2nglish commerce at the opening of the fourteenth century. 
Connnuni'iie&n presented precisely similar to those exhibited in the agricultural 

i i. Chanj the present day _.. -78 

policy u ode ,f policy under Edward III., and its effects. Adoption of the protective 

? .'). Eflfecharles II U9 

ptirtion of tif dependence upon the distant market, as shown in England in the early 
upon dimii eighteenth century. Changes in the condition of the people consequen"' 

'i 6. Mo»ion of that dependence Ihl 

its poweipolistic character of the British system. Nothing comparable with it. It 

g 7. P(r evil, ever before devised 182 

for gpodjr for evil when wrongly directed, exists, everywhere, in the ratio of that 
.. . tax if taen guided in the right direction. British system looks to diminishing th.. 
4 .1- Jjic ransportation fir the British people, but increasing it for the other nations of 
the world ISJw 

CHAPTER XV. — OF chemical axd mechanical changes in tbb form of MAi'i^a 

— CONTINUED. 

g 1. Errors of the British system obvious to Adam Smith. His caution to his country- 
men in regard to the dangers necessarily incident to an exclusive dependence upiii 
trade. His advice neglected, and hence the growth of pauperism and the origination 

cf the theory" of over-population H' 

{> "2. AVarlike and monopolistic character of the system 18! 

g 3. By destroying among other people the power to sell their labor it destroys com- 
petition for the purchase of British labor. Teaching, that to enable capital to obtain 
a f lir remuneration labor must be kept down, it tends to the production of slavevy 

everywhere li?3 

2 4. Approximation in the prices of raw materials and finished commodities the ore 
essential characteristic of civilization. British sj'stem looks to the prevention of that 
appro.ximation. Its tendency towards reduction of other communities to a state 1' 

oarbarism ^'*- 

? 5. Stoppage of the circulation a necessary consequence of the predominance of tiic 
J«rjtish system. Disappearance of the small proprietors of England. Condition of the 

if jicultiiral laborer 1'.'3 

an, 6. The higher the organization the more perfect the power of self-governme:it. 
,at power diminishing among the people, and in the government, of England. Gulf 

i'iding the higher and lower classes a constantly widening one 1' .'i 

\ 7. Necessity for careful study of the system under which originated the theory of 
jer-population. Inevitable tendency of the Ricardo-JIalthusian doctrine that I'i' 
jiking slavery the ultimate condition of the laborer. The system of the British sch -il 
Retrograde one. Had its origin in a retrograde policy. Sees in man a mere inst «- 
imt to be used by trade ••• 107 



hrf 
pol 

Obti 



CHAPTER XVI.— OF CH.INOES OF MATTER IN FORM. 

II.— 0/ Vital Changes. 



. .|? 1. Irregularity in the demand for the powers of the early settler, and consequi' it 
f*l ists of force. Economy of force resulting from increased ability to command tli-- 
jjirvices of nature. The more perfect the power of association, the greater is th<» 

Y_J -onomy of human force ^^^ 

V] ^ 2. The greater that economy the larger is the proportion of the labor empln.vd 
« (\at may be given to the development of the powers of the earth, and towards ilie 
"j reation of a scientific agriculture. Difficulty of combination among a purely af' i- 

.ultural people. Slavery of the laborer its necessary consequence • '''' 

', J 3. The fanner near to market always making a machine; the one distant from It. 
hways destroving one. With the one, labor and its products are daily more and m 'i c 
( Momized. With the other, the waste increases fi-om day to day— man's progress . 
I iitsoever direction, being one of constant acceleration. Population makes tin- I 
Laie from the ricl soils, while depopulation drives them hack to the poor ones 



12 CONTENTS. 

\p,,„. ,. PAOB 

§ 4. Gambling character of the labors of the field where the mi'. '-'^^ is distant. 
Diminution of risk resulting from the approximation of the consume 1 the pro- 
ducer. The labor given to the wtjrk of conversion so much saved that w J'f rtherwise 
bo wasted. Social phenomena observed in Ireland, India, and other coui!^''^; in which 
the consumer and producer are becoming more widely separated \n"b '^'^ 

I 5. British system looks to the separation of the consumers and proc s of the 
world— to the consequent destruction of agriculture— and to the elevatior""" rade at 
the expense of commerce. Hence it is, that it has given rise to the thef "?'f over- 
population. Kesistance thereto, by all the advancing communities of the « '"J 204 

'trai 

CHAPTER XVII.— OF vital changes in the forms of matter— C01aj,(-7ED. 

? 1. Constant alliance between war and trade, as exhibited in the history oV" uce. 
Poverty and dishonesty of its sovereigns -ybi 206 

I 2. Uniform tendency of its policy, prior to the days of Colbert, towards gi'jf i to 
trade the mastery over commerce. Tendency of his measures, that of increasii^'he ■ 
rapidity of the societary movement r .. 207 

'i 3. Warlike policy of Louis XIV., and consequent necessity for abandonma'if 
Colbert's system. Expulsion of the Huguenots, and annihilation of manufactY . 
Consequent unproductiveness of agriculture, and wretchedness of the people 4. 208 

g 4. Colbert's policy maintained by Turgot. Abandoned by the negotiators of \ 
Eden Treaty. Consequent annihilation of commerce. Poverty of the people lead^ 
revolution. Colbert's system re-established. Extraordinary growth in the quantfij 
pnd value of the products of French agriculture 209 

g 5. Changes in the distribution of labor's products resulting from increase in the 
power of association ^nd combination, and in the quantity of commodities produced. 
Great increase in the value of land, resulting fi-om diminution of the tax of transpor- 
tation 211 

§ 6. France a country of " contrasts" — its social system tending towards decentrali- 
zation, while its political one tends, more and more, towards centi-alization. Colbert's 
policy in strict accordance with the doctrines of Adam Smith. Causes of poverty 
among the French people 216 

CHAPTER XVIII. — OF vital changes in the forms of matter — CONTINnED, 

g 1. Wide difference between the French and British systems — the former looking to 
the approximation of the producer and consumer, and the latter to their separation... 218 

§ 2. Consequences of this 'exhibit themselves in the great increase in the value of 
French land, as compared with that of the United Kingdom. Comparative growth of 
French and British agriculture 220 

^ 3. French land being more divided, the small proprietor profits by increase in the 
prices of his products and his land. British tenants ruined by decline in the price of 
food y I 

§ 4. French policy looks to making manufactures subsidiary to agriculture 
tating the export of the products of the soil of France. Consequent increase ot 
commerce [ 

§ 5. British policy makes agriculture subsidiary to manufactures. Trade, th 
replaces the former British commerce j 

J 6. British system taxes the agricultural communities of the world for its n 
»nce. That of France looks to their emancipation from taxation 

§ 7. Solidarity of interests among the land-owners and laborers of the world a 
Deterioration of the condition of the farm-laborers of England. Centralization 
population, and physical and msntal decline travel hand in hand together 

CHAPTER XIX. — OP VITAL changes in the forms of MATTER — CONTI 

§ 1. Agricultural distress throughout the world, consequent upon the return o ! 

In 1815. Cause thereof, to be found in the decline of manufactures, and in the \ 

tion of the consumer from the producer, in all the countries of the world, out 
Britain. General adoption of measures looking to counteraction of the British i 

1 2. Few natural advantages of Denmark. Following in the lead of Fran | 
policy looks, however, to the approximation of the consumer and the producer, i 

relief of her farmers from the tax of transportation. Consequent prosperity \ 

people. Steady enlargement of the agricultural base of society. Constant inct ( 

the power of association and combination — iu the development of individualit i 

to the power of fuither progress " 

2 3. Decline of Spanish manufactures, diminution iu the power of associatii 



CONTENTS. 18 

PAOK 

decay of agiirulture, consequent upon the expulsion of tbe Moors, aud the acquisition 
of distant colonies. Loss of those colonies followed by the adoption of a system tend- 
ing U promote the growth of commerce, aud diminish the trader's power. Great in- 
crea«« in tho value of land, and in the freedom of man 239 

CHAPTER XX. — OF yiTAt chanoes in the forms of matter — continued. 

§ ' . The German manufacturing system due to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 
Its giadual development down to the close of the war in 1815. Its decline, under the 
fr«»» trade system which followed the peace. First Prussian tariff having for its object 
the diversiftcation of the employments of the people 236 

g 2. Gradual formation of the Zoll- Verein, or Customs Union. Great increase of 
foreign and domestic commerce consequent upon the adoption of measures tending to 
the emancipation of German land from the oppressive tax of transportation. Protec- 
tion having cheapened finished commodities, Germany now exports them. Having 
raised the prices of raw materials, they are now imported 238 

J 3. Growing division of the land, accompanied by an enlargement of the proportions 
lK>rne by the agricultural class to the mass of which society is composed. Increased 
respect for the lights of property, consequent upon its more general diffusion among 
the people. Steady increase in the freedom of man, and in the strength of the State. 3i0 

§ i. Rude character of Russian agriculture half a century since. Growth of manu- 
factures under the Continental system of Napoleon. Their disappearance under the 
free triide system. Re-adoption of the policy of Colbert, and its effects. Great increase 
in the quantify and value of agricultural products since the le-adoption of protection 241 

J D. Increase in the competition for the purchase of the laborer's services and grow- 
ing freedom of man 212 

g 6. ObstHCles standing in the way of the creation of a scientific agriculture. Com- 
munism and its effects 244 

2 7. Growing individuality among the people, with corresponding growth of strength 
IntheStfcte 245 

g 8. Swoden, like Russia, follows in the lead of France — maintaining the policy of 
Colbert, to the exclusion of that advocated by the economists of Britain. Its effects, 
as exhibf led in bringing the consumer and producer into close proximity to each other. 
Comparttive movement of the population, and of the supply of food 246 

§ 9. Difision of land and increase of its value — resulting from its emancipation from 
the tax of transportation. Intellectual development, consequent upon the creation 
of local centres of activity 247 

§ 10. Social decentralization gradually correcting the errors of political centralization 249 

j 11. Differing ia race, habits, manners, and religion, France and Germany, Spain and 
Denmark, Sweden and Russia, are agreed in nothing, except in the maintenance of a 
policy which looks to the promotion of association, the extension of commerce, and the 
emancipation of the land from the tax of transportation, in accordance with the ideas 
of .\dam Smith. In all of them agriculture steadily advances, the land becomes more 
divided, and men become more free. Agreeing in nothing else, Portugal and Turkey, 
Ireland and India, unite in the maintenance of the policy advocated by the Ricardo- 
Malthusian school. In all of them agriculture declines, the land becomes consolidated, 
and the freedom of man has almost wholly passed away 249 

CHAPTER XXI. — OF vital changes in the forms of m.4.tter— continued. 

§ 1. The American Union a country of contrasts — its social system tending towards 
centralization and slavery, while its political one is based upon the idea of decentral- 
ization and freedom. Natural tendency towards association and combination. Counter- 
acted by a national policy tending towards dispersion 252 

g 2. Early tendencies towards the adoption of the system which looked towards 
bringing together the producer and the consumer. Variable character of American 
policy since the close of the great European war 256 

g 3. Policy of Colbert and Cromwell adopted in regard to shipping. Freedom of trade 
obtained by means of protective measures 258 

1 4. American policy, generally, in full accordance with the doctrines of the British 
school. Consequent decline in the prices of the rude products of the farm. The man 
who must go to any market, must pay the tax of transportation. Heavy taxation of 
American farmers'. 258 

2 5. Civilization grows in the direct ratio of the removal of obstacles standing be- 
tween the producers and the consumers 261 

g 6. The plant;r steadily giving more of his raw materi.als, and receiving less in ex- 
change for them. Consequent exha\istion of the soil, and weakness of the State 262 

?7 Barbarisnr grows, everywhere, in the direct ratio of the export of the rude pro- 
ducts of th" soil, and con»eqvie;i decline in the powers of tho land 264 



14 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXII. — OF vital"changes in the forms of matter — continued. 

PAai 

1 1. Wealth consists In the power to command the services of nature. Great in- 
crease of British wealth, resulting from the cumniand of steam. E.xtraordinary 
amount of undeveloped power in the United States. Combination of action required 

for its development. National policy adverse to association and combination '2S9 

§ 2.-Waste of power resulting from the exhaustion of the suil, and consequent diii- 
porsion of men. Gradual consolidation of the land 267 

§ 3. Trader's power steadily increases, while that of the farmer and planter as 
Bteadily declines. Consequent instability and Irregularity of the societary movement. 
Trader profits by instability. Kemarkable steadiness and regularity of the societary 
movement in all those periods in which the protective policy has been maintained 268 

g 4. Growing commerce enables the faimer to pass from the cultivation of the poorer 
to the richer soils. American policy restricts him to the former. Growing commerce 
tends to increase the power of labor over capital. American policy gives to capital 
greater power over labor. Growing commerce tends towards peace, and an economi- 
cal administration of the affairs of government. American policy looks to extension of 
tlie trader's power at the expense of commerce. Increasing tendency towards war 
and waste. Growing commerce tends towards development of the latent powers of 
earth and man. American policy tends towards exhaustion of the one and enslave- 
ment of the other 269 

§ 5. Speculative and gambling spuit engendered by a growing dependence upon the 
trader and transporter. Decline in the feeling of responsibility resulting from irregu- 
larity in the s.jcietary movement. Political and judicial corruption resulting from the 
growth of centralization '. 271 

g 6. The higher the societary organization the more rapid Is the movement and the 
more instant the exhibition of the effects of a sound, or unsound, course of policy. 
Frequency and rapidity of changes in these United States 272 

§ 7. Phenomena of declining civilization now (1856) exhibited throughout the Union 273 

^ 8. Human progress manifests itself in decline in the trader's power, and the at- 
tendant creation of a scientific agiiculture. Opposite tendency of the American 
policy, and consequent decline of civilization 276 

2 9. As agriculture becomes a science the land becomes more productive, and its 
products tend to rise in price. Consequent double profit to the farmer. As raw ma- 
terials rise in price finished products fall, with further profit to the farmer. Man and 
land at one end of the scale of prices, and the more highly finished products at the 
other. The more rapid the societarj' circulation the greater is their tendency towards 
approximation. Agricultural improvement waits upon, and never precedes, industrial 
development 277 

g 10. As I'aw materials and finished products approximate in price, commerce grows, 
with constant increase in the steadiness of the societary movement. As they become 
more widely separated, trade acquires power, and the movement becomes, from year 
to year, more fitful and irregular. With the one, the real man becomes daily more 
developed. With the other, man becomes from day to day more thoroughly enslaved 278 

CHAPTEK XXIII. — OF THE INSTRUMENT OP ASSOCIATION. 

I. — Of Money and Price. 

g 1. Diflicnlty, in the early periods of society, of making exchanges of service. 
General adoption of some certain commodity as a standard for the comparison of 
values. Recommendations, for this purpose, of the precious metals 28U 

2 2. Facility of association and combination resulting from the use of money. Of all 
the machinery in use among men it is the one which most economizes human effort. 
To the social body it is what atmospheric air is to the physical one — both supplying 
the machinery of circulation 28\ 

^ 3. Definition of price. Prices of raw materials rise as we approach the Centres of 
civilization, while those of finished commodities as regularly decline. Double loss to 
t);3 faiiuer who is distant from market, resulting from the low prices of the one, and 
the high prices of the other. The more highly finished a commodity, the greater is its 
tendency to fall of price 284 

J 4. Land and labor, the ultimate raw material of all commodities, rise in price, as 
men are more enabled to associate, and combine their efforts. Money the great instru- 
ment furnished by Providence for facilitating association and combination. The more 
perfect the supply the -eof, the greater is the tendency towards freedom 288 

CHAPTJiR XXIV. — OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

II. — Of the Supply of Money. 
g 1. Commodities tend to lea?e those places at which they have the least utility and 



CONTENTS. 15 

lAGE 

(trpatcst viliie,aiiil tii .seek those at wliicli their value is least ami their utility greatest. 
The raw material of money flows, therefore, from those places at which food and wool 
are cheap and cloth and iron dear, towards those at which the former are dear and the 
latter cheap jS9 

? 2. Flowing always towards those countries in which raw materials and finished 
commodities approximate most in jtrico, tho power to command their services is proof 
conclusive of advancing civilization 290 

? 3. Central and Northern Europe now becoming the great reservoirs of those metals. 
The more the rude products of their soil rise in price the greater must lie the tendency 
of gold and silver in that direction. Raw materials tend to leave the countries in 
vvhirli employments are not diversified, and to g<i to those in which diversification 
most exists. Tho precious metals follow in their train 291 

^ i. Results of American experience. Exce.ss export of those metals in all the free 
trade pericxls", and excess imp irt of them in all the protected ont-s. Stoppage of the 
societary ciiculation in the firmer, and increased rapidity of movement in the latter. 
General tendency of American policy that of reducing the prices of rude products and 
increasing those of finished commodities 292 

2 5. Money, the indispensable instrument of society. Of all the instruments in use 
ara>ng men, the one that performs the largest amount of service in proportion to its 
c >at. Economists assert that the only effect of an influx of the precious metals is that 
of rendering a country a good place to sell in, but a bad one in which to buy. That 
theory contradicted by all the facts of history, the direct tendency of such influx hav- 
ing, and that invariably, been th.at of reducing the prices of the finished commodities 
required by the producers of gold and silver. AVith every step in this direction agri- 
culture tends to become a science, and the supply of food becomes more abundant 295 

(J 6. The use of circulating notes tends to diminish the value of the precious metals, 
while increasing their utility. All commodilics going to those places at which their 
utili-j is greatest, the use of such notes should promote the influx of those metals. 
Error of (Jreat Britain and the United States in seeldng to promote that influx by 
means of a war against circulating notes 2i*8 

CHAPTER XXV. — OF THE INSTRUMENT OF .^SSOCI.iTION — CONTI.NUED. 

III. — Of the Charge fat- the Use of Monei/. 

? 1. The charge fir the use of land, houses, ships, and all other commodities and 
things, declines with every diminution in the cost of repriKluction. So, too, with 
money, the rate of interest tending downwards, as man acquires greater power for the 
direction of the natural forces — that power constituting wealth. Interest, therefore, 
tends to fall in all those countries which f dlow in the lead of Colbert and of France, 
while rising in all those that follow in the lead of England. Phenomena presented for 
consideration by the United States 800 

^ 2. Money Is capital, but capital is not necessarily money. Inteiest paid for the )ise 
of money alone. Various modes in which compensation is made fir the use of capital 
in its various forms. Error of distinguished economists in supposing that interest is 
paid for the use of capital in other forms than that of money. Tendency of interest 
to fall as the societary motion becomes more rapid .301 

§ 3. The utility of money increases as its circulation becomes more rapid. Its value 
increases as its movement becomes retarded 302 

g 4. Increase in the supply of money tends to promote equality among men. Phe- 
nomena observed in India, France, anil Holland 304 

^ 5. Communities increase In strength as the rate of interest declines — raw products 
then rising, and finished commodities falling, and thus presenting evidence of ad- 
vancing civilization. Teachings of economists generally in regard to money directly 
opposed to the lessons taught by the common sense of mankind. Gold and silver 
properly denominated the precious metals — being, of all commodities, those which 
most contribute to the development of individuality, and to the promotion of the 
pow'ir of asioclation 305 

CHAPTER XXVI, — of the instrument op A880CI.\TI0N — contihoed. 
IV.— 0/ the Trade in Money. 

i 1. The precious metals the only commodities of universal acceptance, berg the in- 
dispensable instruments of commerce 308 

i 2. Proportion borne by money to tho amount of commerce increases ic declining 
owntries and decrea.st« in advancing ones 509 



1 6 CONTENTS. 

PAQd 

23. Centralization, retarding the societary motion, increases that proportion. De- 
centralization diminishes it. Man then becomes more valuable and more free 810 

g 4. Money being the one indispensable instrument of society, governments have 
always assumed to control its management, as supplying the most productive of ail 
the machinery of taxation. Falsification of money by European sovereigns 310 

§ 5. Banks established with a view to the emancipation of the currency from the 
control of governments. Deposit banks of Italy, Germany, and Holland. Institution 
of banks of discount 312 

§6. Enlargement of the operations of discount banks 313 

g 7. Banks of circulation commence with the Bank of England 314 

1 8. How the expansions and contractions of banks affect the societary movement... 315 
1 9. Great power of banks for good or evil. Banking monopolies, like those of France 

and England, give to a few individuals a power over the societary movement compared 
with which that exercised by the sovereigns of old sinks into insignificance 317 

CHAPTER XXVII. — of the instrument op association — coniintei). 
V. — Of Banking in England. 

gl. Great power exercised by the Bank of England 319 

§ 2. No banking business in England at the date of the Restoration. Under Charles 
II. jewellers become bankers. Consequent increase in the utility of money. Establish- 
ment of the Bank of England 320 

j3. Movements of the bank from 1797 to 1815 322 

§ 4. Change therein, subsequent to the close of the war. Resumption of specie pay- 
ments. Productive of wide-spread ruin. Producing classes impoverished, while the 
merely consuming ones are enriched 323 

§ 5. Effect of those measures that of giving to the moneyed capitalist increased com- 
mand over land and labor, always an evidence of declining civilization 324 

2 6. Constant succession of expansions, contractions, and financial crises, each in suc- 
cession tending to increase the power of money over land-owner and laborer 325 

§ 7. Bank Act of Sir Robert Peel. Its object, that of producing steadiness in the 
monetary movement. Its effect, that of increasing the power of the bank to 'Control 
the societary movement. Its total failure 326 

I 8. Cause of its failure to be found in the fact that it sought to regulate the cur- 
rency in use, leaving wholly out of view the action of the bank in affecting the cur- 
rency seeking to be employed 327 

g 9. Currency in use almost a constant quantity. Essential error of the Bank Act. 
Under it monetary changes become more frequent and more severe 329 

CHAPTER XXVIII. — or the instrument of association — continued. 
VI. — Of Banking in France. 

g 1. Taxation of the French people by means of regulation of the currency 331 

1 2. Private banks established at the close of the Revolution. Consolidated in the 
Bank of France. Monopoly powers of that institution. Directly interested in pro- 
ducing changes in the currency 332 

§ 3. Steadiness in the amount of currency in nse. Financial crises have their origin 
in changes in the amount of currency unemployed 334 

g 4. Those changes due to the irregularity in the movements of the one great bank. 
Their result seen in the augmentation of its dividends 335 

§ 5. Political and monetary centralization tends to enfeeble the societary action and 
to, diminish the amount of commerce. Counteracted, in some degree, by the mainten- 
II nee of a policy having for its object the emancipation of the land from the tax of 
Iraii^portation 336 

CHAPTER XXIX. — of the instrument op association — continued. 

VII. — Of Banking in the United States. 

§ 1. Gradual development of the American banking system. How it stood at th* 
close of the half century which followed the Revolution. Its progress since that time. 
Large proportion borne by capital to the amount.of investments 337 

2 2. Steadiness in the notion of banks is in the direct ratio of- their dependen.~e upon 
the power of affording means of circulation, and in the inverse ratio of their a» peud- 



CONTENTS. 1 7 

PAOI 

enc« ap.n deposits. American banks possess more of the elements of atability than 
thuse of France and England 338 

^ 3. Small proportion borne by the currency to production when compared with 
oitlier of the above-named countries 340 

^ 4. Superior economy of the American sy^stem 342 

g 5. Steadiness in its own value the great desideratum -n a currency. Tendencies 
cf the American system in that direction 342 

5 d. Trivial amount of losses by American banks under the S3'stem of local action 
prior to 1837. Heavy losses of the people of England from the failures of private ba nks o44 

g 7. Uriiwth of centralization in the last twenty years, and consequent diminution 
in the steadiness oi the currency. Maintenance of a sound and stable currency in- 
compatible with the existence of an unfavorable balance of trade. That balance 
unfavorable in relation to all purely agricultural countries 345 

(I 8. Instability of .\merican policy. Periods of protection and free trade alternating 
with each other. Prosperity the invariable attendant of the former, and bankruptcy 
of the people and the State that of the hitter .S47 

J y. The money-shop, or bank, one of the most necessary portions of the societary 
machinery. More than any other, the .\raerican banking system tends to promote the 
habit of as;jociatiou, the development of individuality, and the growth of wealth 349 

CUAPTEK XXX. — OF the isstrumext op associatios — costisced. 
Vni,T-<y Hume, Sinitli, and other Writers on Money. 

? 1. Theories of Mr. Hume in regard to money. Diiectly opposed to all the facts of 
history „, ,.., „., 352 

^ 2. His fiilure to observe, that while increase in the supply of money raises the 
pnces of raw materials, it reduces those of finished products. Throughout incon- 
sistent with himself. Accuracy of his views when asserting that no country need 
fear an unfavorable balance of trade that " preserved with care its people and its 
manufactures"..., 354 

^ 3. General accordance of the views of Hunie and Adam Smith. Inconsistencies 
of the latter. A medium of circulation the one great need of society. Hence the 
desire of all communities to establish in tlieir favor a balance of trade. In.consistea- 
cies of the opponents of this idea 366 

g 4. Doctrines of the RicardivMalthusian school in regard to money. Mr. J. S. Mill. 
His views in regard to the jneificiency of money. Failure of the British economists to 
appreciate the services of the pi-ecious metals 358 

^ 5. M. Basti.at. Correspondence of his views with those of Hume and Smith. His 
doctrines being received as true, there can be no harmony of international interests... 360 

'i 6. M. Chevalier holds that money is indispensable to man, and yet, that disadvan- 
tage may result froru increase in its supply. The precious metals, the great instru- 
bients furnished by the Creator f jr the pnxluction of scwietary motion. The more 
rapid that motion, the greater must be, everywhere, the ptiwer of the individual to 
obtain supplies of fjod, and of the community to command the services of those 
luetoU i62 

CH.\.PTEK XXXI. — OF PBODUciios and consumption. 

2 I. Man the ultimate object of all production. Production consists in the direction 
of natural forces to human service. Every act of consumption an act of production. 
l)emaud the cause of supply 364 

§ 2. Labor-power the most perishable of all commodities. Perishes, uidess the 
demand f lUows inshniHy up^n its production. Waste of labor one of the conditions of 
Oitrly society and scattered population. Errors of Mr. Malthus and his disciples 3fi5 

g 3. Wages and productive power of England at various periods ?< 3 

? 4. The more continuous and steaily the societary motion the more instant tup 
demaipl for. ami the economy of, labor. That continuity the test of real civilization, 
liivtrsity of employments indispensable to its existence. Waste of power in, and con- 
8'iquent poverty of, all purely agricultural countries 369 

(S 5. Errors of modern economists in regard to productive and unproductive labor. 
All labor productive which tends to enable man more thoroughly to direct the f irces 
of nature to his service, wealth consisting in the existence of that power of dir(H'tii>n. 
Tli» greater the power of man over nature the more rapid the progress of iiccumulation 3^1 

CHAPTER X.XXII— OF accumulation. 
§^. Power of accun.ulation exists in the ratii) of the rapidity of the circulntioD 



1 8 CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

Cypital the instrument by means of which man is enabled to diret! the natural rces 
ti> his service. Power of association grows as he obtains increased command over the 
instrument 374 

§ 2. Movable capital declines in its proportions as compared with that which is fixed, 
that decline being an evidence of advancing civilization. Centralization produces the 
reverse ettect. Increase of movable capital in all the present free-trade countries 374 

§ 3. Errors of modern economists in regaiding saving as the cause of the growth of 
capital 376 

^ 4. That growth due to the economy of human effort. That economy a consequence 
of diversification of employments, and consequent combination of action 377 

g 5. Errors of Adam Smith in regard to the origin of capital 379 

^ 6. Chief dilBculty of social science. Summary of definitions thus far given in the 
present work 3S0 

CHAPTER XXXIII.— OP circulation. 

§ 1. Little circulation of either land or man, in the early stages of society. Large 
proportion then borne by movable to fixed capital 381 

^ 2. Circulation increases in its rapidity in the direct ratio of the tendency of capital 
to become fixed and immovable 382 

J 3. The more rapid the circulation the greater the tendency towards the creation of 
local centres, towards the development of individuality, and towards having society 
assume its natural form 383 

§ 4. Circulation becomes more rapid as employments become diversified, and land 
becomes divided. Social phenomena exhibited by I'rauce 384 

§ 6. Tendency of British policy to promote increase in the proportions of movable 
capital at the expense of that which is fixed. Consequent sluggishness of circulation 
in all the countries subject to it 386 

§ 6. Circulation becomes more rapid in the ratio of the tendency towards approx- 
imation in the prices of rude products and finished commodities 387 

§ 7. Tendencies of the British colonial system to produce stoppage of tfle circulation. 
Its effects, as exhibited in the past and present of these United States 388 

§ 8. The more rapid the circulation the more equitable the distribution. Identity 
of the physical and social laws 390 

CHAPTER XXXIV.— oj distribution. 

I. — Of Wages, Profits, and Interest. 

§ 1. Of wages, profits, and interest. Lai-ge proportion, in the early stages of society, 

assigned to capital 392 

2 2. Capitalist's proportion diminishes as the cost of reproduction declines 393 

g 3. General law of distribution. Laborer's share increases in both its proportion 
and amount. That of the capitalist increases in amount, while diminishing in its 
proportion. Tendency of this law to produce equality in the condition of mankind. 

its harmony and beauty .S93 

g 4. Universal application of the law that is here propounded SIS5 

g 5. Labor's proportion increases as the prices of rude products and those of finished 
commodities tend to approximate to each other. That tendency found in all the 
countries in which employments become more diversified. The reverse of this found 

in all the countries that adopt the doctrines of the British school 396 

g 6. Erroneous views of Adam Smith in regard to the natural law regulating the 
charge for the use of money. Absence of consistency in the doctrines of the Kicardo- 
Malthusian school. The value of man rises as the rate of profit, interest, and rent, 
declines ; 397 

CHAPTER XXXV. — op distribution — continued. 

II. — Of the Rent of Land. 

_ g 1. Of the rent of land. Large proportion of the landlord in the days of early cul- 
tivation. That proportion diminishes as labor becomes more productive, but the 
amount of rent increases. The laborer's share increases with large increase in its 
imouut, both thus profiting by increase in the power to command the services of nature 400 

g2. Ricardo's theory of rent. Teaches the reverse of this, the landlord's propor- 
tion increasing as agricultural labor becomes less productive 401 



CONTENTS. 19 

PAoa 

? 3. That tbeory based upon the false assumption that cultivation commences on the 
rich soils, and that labor becomes less productive as men increase in number and in 
power 403 

2 4. No such rent as that indicated by Ricardo has ever been, or ever can be paid..., 405 

§ 5. The ultimate slavery of man the natural tendency of the Ricardo-Malthusiun 
theory, rent rising as labor becomes less productive 406 

? fi. Simplicity and universal truth of natural laws. Complexity and error of the 
Ricardo theory 408 

g 7. Growth of rent supposed by Mr. Bicardo to be retarded by improvements in cul- 
tivation. Interests of the landlord supposfid to be promoted by diminution in the 
8ui)i>ly of food, and increasing poverty of the laborer 408 

^ 8. The Ricardo theory on^of universal discords. Harmony and beauty of the real 
laws 409 

g 9. The more rapid the circulation, the greater the tendency towards equalitj' and 
freedom among the people, and strength in the State 410 

2 10. War among nations, and discord among individuals, grow with the growth of 
monopoly of the land. That monopoly a necessary consequence of the British policy. 
With every stage of its progress the more must the people suffer in the distribution 
between themselves and the State 411 

CHAPTER XXXVl. — of distribution — oontinoed. 
III.— 27ie People and the State 

g 1. Of the distribution between the people and the State. Small security obtained 
at the cost of heavy contributions in the early stages of society. As employments 
become diversified security increases and is obtained at diminished cost 413 

§ 2. Necessity foi indirect ta.xation in the early period. Diminishes as fixed property 
increases in the proportions borne by it to that which is movable 415 

2 3. Commerce tends to become more free as the proportion of movable to fixed 
property declines 416 

§4. Tendency towards increase of indirect taxation an evidence of declining civili- 
ration. Phenomena presented for consideration by Greece and Rome. Indirect taxa- 
tion of Holland, Turkey, and other countries that are becoming more subject to the 
dominion of the trader 41T 

§ 5. Substitution of indirect for direct taxation in Great Britain. Taxation of India 
and Carolina. The real payers of British taxes the land and labor of the various 
coantries which furnish the raw materials consumed in British workshops 41S 

§ 6. Reven-ie system of the United States. The countries in which direct taxation 
tends to supersede those which are indirect, are those which have protected them- 
selves against the British system 420 

§ 7. The more direct the taxation the less will be its proportion to production 421 

g 8. The more rapid the circulation the less the power for interference with com- 
merce, and the greater the tendency towards improvement in the condition of man. 
Why not, then, at once abolish all indirect taxation 1 Because the power of direct 
taxation — being an evidence of that high civilization which is marked by the near 
approach of the prices of rude products and finished commodities — cannot be exercised 
in any country that has not prepared for it by placing consumers and producers in 
close proximity to each othitr 422 

^ 9. The more perfect the power to apply directly to the land and labor of the 
country, the greater the competition for the purchase of both, and the greater the 
strength of the State 424 

CHAPTER XXXVn.— OP competition. 

'i 1. In the absence of competition for the purchase of labor-power, the laborer be- 
comes enslaved. That power the only comm 'dity that cannot be preserved, even for 
an instant, beyond the moment of its production 426 

§ 2. The more the competition for the purchase of labor the more rapid the circula- 
tion, the larger the production, and the greater the power of accumulation 427 

§ 3. Competition for the purchase of labor tends toward freedom. The trader desires 
to produce competition for its sale 427 

^ 4. Trading centralization seeks to produce competition for the sale of raw materials 
•nd lab')r. Therefore adverse to the growth of value in land or man 428 

§ 5. Effect of trading centralization upon the condition of the British people 430 

§ 6. Trading centralization deteriorates the condition of the laborers of the worlii. 
Ne'cosBity for resistance thereto 431 



20 CONTENTS. 

PACf 

^ 7. Competition for the control of nature's services raises \he value of both land 
and man 432 

J 8. Competition foi Ihe purchase of labor tends to strengthen custom into law, in 
favor of the laborer. Competition for its sale tends to the annihilation of customary 
rights in favor of the capitalist. Where this last is found, the societary circulation 
becomes more sluggish, with constant growth of the disease of over-population 433 

CHAPTER XXXYIII.— OF poptoation. 

§ 1. That the earth may be subdued, man must multiply and increase. Fecundity 
and development in the inverse ratio of each other. Man should therefore increase 
but very slowly. However long the period of duplication, if the procreative tendency 
\a a fixed and positive quantity, the time must arrive when there will be but standing- 
room for the population. Can the Creator have subjected man to laws, in virtue of 
which he must become the slave of nature and of his fellow-man?,, 436 

§ 2. Physical science testifies that order, harmony, and reciprocal adjustment, reign 
throughout all the realms it has yet explored. Modern economists have mistaken 
facts fur laws. Laws are rules, permanent, uniform, and universal in their action. 
Theory of Mr. Malthus deficient in all these characteristics. The procreative function, 
SI conmron with all others, placed under the law of circumstances and conditions. Are 
war and pestilence required for correcting errors of the Creator, or has the Creator so 
adjusted the procreative tendency as to provide the means of correcting human error? 438 

(! 3. Power of progress in the ratio of the perfection of organization. Man. the being 
niiist susceptible of change — passing from the mere animal and becoming the real man, 
responsible to his family, his fellow-men, and his Creator. Kesponsibility grows with 
tlie growing power of association, and with division of the land 442 

? i. Growth of population modified by the development of that feeling of responsi- 
bility which comes with the ownership of land 444 

g 5. Recklessness and poverty consequent upon absence of diversity jn the jnodes of 
employment and consolidation of 'the land. Adaptability of the procreative power to 
the circnmstances.in which a community is placed 445 

^ 6. Consolidation of* the land, and the disease of over-population, necessary conse- 
quences of a policy which looks to the cheapening of labor, and of the I'ude products 
of the earth. British system tends to the production of these effects. Jts results, as 
exhibited in the condition of the English people 448 

^ T. Pioneer life favorable to increase of numbers. Effects of American policy as 
exhibited in the dui-atiou of life , 450 

§ 8. Reproductive function not_a constant quantity. General predominance of the 
nutritive and sexual function's. Antagonism of the animal propensities and higher 
Rentiments. Fertility of the drudges of an imperfect civilization. Infertility of the 
bnnter tribes. Activitj' of the intellect checks proci'eation. Cerebral and generative 
powers of man mature together. Fecundity in the inverse ratio of organization. A 
Belt-acting law of population secures harmony in the growth of numbers and of food 461 

CHAPTER XXXIX.— OF food and population. 

? 1. Population makes the food come from the rich soils of the earth, depopulation 
driving men back to the poorer ones. Increased reg-ularity in the supply of food con- 
sequent upon the increased demands of a population that is growing in numbers and 
in power. Diminution in the waste of human force that attends increase in the supply 
of food 456 

§ 2. Substitution of vegetable for animal food. Causes the action of man upon 
nature to become more direct, thereby diminishing friction and increasing power..,,... 458 

g 3. The mineral world co-operates in diminishing man's dependence on the animal 
one. Diminution in the demand upon man's physical powers, and in the quantity of 
food required to supply the daily waste 459 

g 4. Tendency of the lower animals to disappear. Consequent diminution in the 
supply of carbonic "cid. Increased demand for supplies of that acid which attends 
the extension of cultivation. Consequent necessity for increase in the number of men. 
Wonderful beauty of all natural arrangements..,,..., , , 4(50 

g 5. That man may profit by those arrangements he is required to conform to that 
law of nature which demands that the consumer and producer take their places 1>y 
each other. Population pressing upon subsistence in all communities by which it is 
violated , 461 

g 6. Destructive effects of British policy in causing the exhaustion of the countiies 
that follow in the lead of her economists. Tendency in ajl ot th'eni towards ccntraljy.a- 
tiou, slavery, and death '. , 4(i2 



CONTENTS. 21 

PAOI 

J 7. Simplicity and beauty of the laws which regulate the demand >r food, imd its 
supply. Perfect harmony, throughout nature, in the adaptation of means to ends .... 463 

CHAl'TEK XL.— OP coLONiz.iTios. 

9 1. Early colonization. Nature goes on adding perfection to perfection, from the 
poles to the tropics. Richer soils of the world as yet unoccupied, nature being there 
all-powerful. With the growth of wealth and population man is enabled to turn 
against her such of her f )rce3 as he has mastered — passing steadily from triumph to 
triumph and subjugating more fertile soils 460 

§ 2. M.Tnuftctures always precede, and never follow, the creation of a real agricul- 
ture. The country that exports its soil in the form of rude products, must end in the 
export of men. Trading centralization tends to annihilation of local centres, ex- 
haustion of the soil, and destruction of the value of land and man. Errors of Ricardo- 
Malthusian teachers. Declining power of association throughout the American 
Union MJ9 

? 0. Error in one community tends to the production of error in all. British warfare 
on the manufactures of other nations tends to the production of slavery abroad and 
at home 47 5 

? 4. Tendency towards over-population in the direct ratio of the separation of the 
prices of raw materials and finishetl commcxlities. Countries which follow in the lead 
of England are those which furnish the facts required for demonstrating the truth of 
Malthusian doctrines 475 

CHAPTER XLI. — op the malthusian theory. 

? 1. Constant tendency, according to Mr. Malthns, in all animated life, to increase 
beyond the nourishment prepared for it. Facts, however, prove that supply is every- 
where, a consoquence of demand, the quantity of food prepared for beings of every 
kind being practically unlimited. Laws of nature vindicate the ways of God to 
man 47T 

i( 2. Miserj and vice attributed to deficiency in the powers of the earth to furnish 
food to increasing numbers. Facts of history prove the difficulty to lie with man 
himself, and not in errots of the Creator 180 

? 3. Mr. Malthns gives facts, and calls them science. Science demands principles, 
asking, Why it is that such things are? Failure of Mr. Malthus to establish "the one 
great cause" of the various fects observed. His FYincipIe of Pnptilation a mere form 
of words, indicating the existence of an altogether imaginary fact 481 

§ i. Responsibility grows with the growth of the gifts of God to man. Poor laborer 
the slave of circumstances, yet held responsible for his acts. Tendency of the Mal- 
thusian doctrine to shift responsibility from the rich and strong to the poor, the weak, 
and the uuinstructed 185 

CHAPTER XLII.— OP commerce. 
I. — Of the Relations of the Sexes. 

? 1. Relations of the sexes. Woman a slave to man, in the early stages of society. 
Her condition improves as wealth and population grow, and as the real man is more 
dsveloped. The more rapid the societary circulation, ami the greater the tendency 
tcTVivrds the creation of a scientific agriculture, the more does the sex tend towards 
occupying its true position 487 

ifi 2. Condition of woman in Central and Northern Europe. Woman rises in the scale 
as land becomes divided, and man becomes more free 488 

J .3. Saxon women sold to slavery. General improvement in the condition of the 
women of England. Loss of the rights of property secured to them by the early 
English law. Deterioration of the condition of the sex, in all the countries that fol- 
low in the train of England 490 

J 4. How the condition of English women is affected by trading centralization. 
Growing competition f)r the sole of female labor. Consequent low wages, and neces- 
sity for resorting to prostitution. Protection tends to produce competition for its 
purchase, thereby benefiting the sex throughout the world 492 

? 5 Extraordinary contrasts presented by the condition of the sex in the several 
(.ortione of the American Union. Theory of the government fivvorable to the creation 
jf l'X;al centres, and to the elevation of the sex. Its practice, tending towards ccntml- 
liation, adverse thereto, and hence the rapid growth of female crime and pn«titutiou 496 



22 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLIII. — of commerce — continued. 
11. — Of the Relations of the Family. 

PASI 

I 1. delations of the Family. Weakness of the Family ties, in the early stages of 
society. Kesponsibility, in both parent and child, grows with division of the land, 
and with the approximation of consumers to producers... 496 

g 2. Education in Central and Northern Europe. Growing feeling of responsibility 
for proper training of youth, as manifested in all those countries in which employ- 
ments are becoming more diversified 497 

^ 3. Keverse of this exhibited in those which follow in the train of England — employ- 
ments there becoming less diversified. Condition of English children. Absence of 
provision for general education. Child-murder. Children regard(sd as mere instru- 
ments to be used by trade. Consequent necessity for a theoryof over-population 499 

J 4. Extraordinary contrasts here again presented by the Ameiican Union. That 
riucation given in the school may prove useful, it is needed that there be demand for 
the ficulties there developed. That there may be such demand, it is required that 
there be diversity in the modes of employment. That the latter may exist, there is 
needed an exercise of the power of the State 802 

CHAPTER XLIV. — of commerce — continuep. 
III. — Of the Commerce of the State. 

§3 Commerce of the State. Solidarity of the human race. Two-f>ld nature of man. 
Correspondence between the structure and functions of the individual man and th^ 
aggi'egate man denominated Society. Co-ordinating office of the brain. Its power 
limited by the necessary liberty of the individual organs. Various degrees of subor- 
dination of the parts. Necessity for exercise of the power of co-ordination gi'ows in 
individuals and societies as the organization becomes more complete. Local centres of 
the physical and social systems. Power and duties of the brain. Order and liberty 
combined and secured. Graduated and federated system of government in the 
human body analogous to the political organization of that social one which consti- 
tutes these United States 501 

§ 2. Social science here branches into political economy — the one treating of natural 
laivs, and the other of the measures required for enabling those laws to have full 
effect. Relation of science and ai-t as exhibited by M. Comte. Necessity for exercise 
of the power of co-ordination. The more perfect the co-ordination the more complete 
the development of all the parts, and the more harmonioup the action of the whole. 
Tendency to the creation of local centres. The more perfect the balance of opposing 
forces, the greater the tendency towards human freedom. Duty of the co-ordinating 
power limited to the removal of obstacles to associatiofl 508 

^ 3. Colbert and his policy. His full appreciation of the necessity for the exercise, 
by the State, of a power of co-ordination. Hume, on the necessity for preserving with 
care the manufactures of a nation. Adam Smith no advocate of the indiscriminate 
adoption of the system of laisser faire. Say, Rossi, Mill, and others, on the duties (if 
a government, in reference to diversification of employments. M. Chevalier holds 
that within certain limits governments are but performing a positive duty when 
they favor the taking possession of all the branches of industry whose acquisition is 
authorized by the nature of things. Holds that French agi-iculture has ceased to bo 
protected. Inaccuracy of the view thus presented. Heavy taxation of transporta- 
tion paid by American farmers, and comparative exemption of those of France. Free- 
dom of trade enjoyed by the latter, as compared with the restrictions on the former. 
Necessity for exercise of the co-ordinating power grows with the growth of wealth 
and numbers The more perfect the power of association within the State, the 
greater the power of its people to contribute to the commerce of the world 511 

CHAPTER XLV. — of commerce — continded. 
IV. — Of the Gmnmerce of the World, 

? 1. Commerce of the World. In societies, as in the individu.al man, the pow-er to 
maintain commerce is in the ratio of development — that becoming more complete 
as the power of co-ordination is more discreetly exercised 51" 

§ 2. Organized bodies grow from within. Brute matter increases only by aggre- 
gation. The more perfect the development of human faculties, the higher the socie- 
'ary organization, and the more complete the self-dependence 518 

g 3. Power for maintaining exterior commerce grows as the community becomes 
more self-dependent ,'. 518 



CONTENTS. 23 

PAOB 

f 4. Liniilpd internal commerce of the States of the American Union. Slow growth 
of the power to maintain foreign commerce 519 

{( ft. Ultimate object of all production found in the real man. The higher his de- 
lelopment, the greater the tendency towards the substitution of the commerce of taste 
and intellect, for that which requires for its maintenance mere brute force. Peace 
and harmony come with the proper e.xercise of the pt)wer of co-ordination. Subordi- 
nation of all the parts becomes more complete as the societary organization becomes 
more perfect 520 

CHAPTER XLVI. — of the societary organization. 

? 1 . Throughout nature, dissimilarity of the parts is evidence of the perfection of tho 
whole, tlie highest organization presenting the most numerous differences. The 
higher the organization, the more complete the subordination of the parts. The 
more perfect the subordination, the more harmonious and beautiful the interdepen- 
dence of the parts. The more complete that interdependence the greater the individ- 
uality of the whole, and the more perfect the power of self-direction 522 

!ji 2. Throughout the physical and social world, harmony of movement — inter- 
dependence — a result of that local attraction which preserves a perfect independence. 
Subordination grows with the growth of the power of sell-direction and protection. 
Harmony a result of the equal action of opposing forces. Its growth in all those 
countries in which the co-ordinating action is in accordance with the principles of 
Social Science 524 

, CHAPTEK XLYII.— or social science. 

g 1. Identity of the physical and social laws. Harmony the universal result of the 
unrestrained operation of natural laws. Identity of intUvjdual and national interests 
throughout the world, 62d 

? 2. Agriculture the last developed of the pursuits of man. The laborer in the field 
the last that is emancipated. Minute machinery, by means of which nature performs 
her greatest operations, the last that is observed. Advantages of peace and harmony, 
last to meet their full appreciation. Science the interpreter of nature. Having 
recorded her processes it accepts them as true. Social Science treats of the laws in 
virtue of which man i3 enabled to obtain power over nature and over himself. Careful 
study of those laws would enable all, from the farmer and the laborer to the sove- 
reign and the statesman, to see that advantage would result from full obedience to 
the great precept which reqtiires that men should do by others as they would that 
othfrA slioulil do by them 621 



SOCIAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

OP SCIENCE. 

( I. Baf^nn's distributions (ind partitions .if the tree of knowledge. Roots and branches 
of the tree. 

§ 2 Method of discovery the same in all departments of knowledge. British economists 
recognize not the real man of society, but the artificial man of their own system. All 
ecieuces and their methods embraced in S(x:iulogy. Analysis leads to synthesis. Science 
one and indivisible. The economical relations of man require mathematical formnlw to 
render them into systematic truths. The societary laws undetermined. Terms of the 
theorists insufficient and equivocal 

I 3. Social science, the constituent and concrete of all others, waits upon their develop- 
ment for its own. Its impediments. The metaphysical must be replaced by themetli- 
odical study of man. Physical and social laws indivisible in the study of society, and all 
the phenomena of the subject constituting but a single science.' 

I 1. " The distribution.s and partitions of knowledge," says 
Lord Bacon, " are not like several lines that meet in one 
angle, and touch but in a point; but are like branches of a 
tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quan- 
tity of entireness and continuance before it comes to discon- 
tinuance and break itself into arms and boughs ; therefore," 
as he continues, " it is good before we enter into the former 
distril)ution, to create and constitute one universal science by 
the name of Philosophia Prima, or Summary Philosophy, as 
the main or common way, before we come where the ways 
part and divide themselves." 

Concerned as he was with the order and division of the 
sciences, and pledged as he was in the introduction to his 
work to furnish it, he failed to do so, as a consequence of 
which his editor submitted a study in its stead. 

The several branches of natural science are commonly 
Bpoken of, but the figure has a larger parallelism with the 
subject, a tree having not only branches but also roots. 
These latter are properly under-ground branches, constituting 
the structural support and furnishing the vital subsistence of 
the tree, which grows from its roots and with them. Its 
stem, blanche.^ flowers, ai;d fruits, being converted aliment 



26 CHAPTER I. § 1. 

supplied by and through the roots, the allusions of the figure 
liere given are in good keeping with the natural history of 
the subject intended to be illustrated. 

The centi-al or taproot, as the reader sees, represents 
MATTER, with its essential properties of inertia, impenetra- 
bility, divisibility, and attraction. The lateral ones stand, 
on one side, for mechanical and chemical forces, and on tlie 
other, for vegetable and animal ones, and from these sub- 
stantive roots of being rises the stem man, so composed as to 
his natural constitution. The soul, being the occult life of 
tiie structure, is incapable of representation, though mani- 
fested by its proper evidence in the flowers and fruits, tho 
emotions and thoughts of his faculties. 

We have now the stem — the man — " having dimension and 
quantity of entireness and continuance before it came to dis- 
continue and break itself," branching off into his diverse 
activities. These branches are his functions, ramifying into 
all their specific differences of application. The first branch 
on the material side is Physics, which ramifies itself into 
natural philosophy and chemistry — masses and atoms; and 
the shoots from these are mechanics and chemical dynamics; 
the one being the action of masses and the other that of 
atoms. 

The main branch on the vital side of the tree, rising a little 
above Physics, must necessarily be Organology, branching 
first into the science of vegetable beings, Phytology, and 
sending off the shoot, Vegetable Physiology ; and second, 
into that of animal beings, Zoology, leading to Biology, or 
the science of life. 

Following the stem in the natural order of rank and suc- 
cessive development it is seen next giving off Social Science, 
which divides itself into Jurisprudence and Political p]con- 
omy, while on the corresponding side the main branch, Psy- 
chology, ramifies itself into Ethics and Theology, the tree 
finally topping out with Intuition as the material branch and 
Inspiration as the vital one. These highest and last named, 
are rightly the source of the other science or sciences to which 
Bacon alludes as standing above Metaphysics, when he says 
that, "as for the vertical point, the summary law of nature, 
we know not whether man's inquiry can attain unto it;" 
that is, so as to order and methodize its teachings. 

In this scheme of the sciences of things, there is no place 
for either Logic or Mathematics, the respective regulative 
sciences of mind and matter. Neither of these belongs to 



P 26 




OF SCIEXCE. 27 

Natural History, being both alike mere instruments to be 
used in the study of nature.* 

Historically, the top branches of the tree of knowledge, as 
of all other trees, are first produced, and the branches next 
below are soon put forth, but mature later, the instincts of 
religion and reason appearing in their vigor in the childhood 
of the race. Social science, necessarily, and metaphysics, 
spontaneously, present themselves as early as societies take 
form, and speculation is awakened; and they bring forth 
quickly the flowers and fruits of music, poetry, the fine arts, 
logic, mathematics, and those generalities of speculative truth 
n'liich are the products of imagination and reflection. Tiie 
t(jrrespondence between the figure chosen and the facts to be 
dlustrated would seem to be complete. 

In time, the branches nearer to the earth, more material in 
thnir substance and more dependent upon observation, obtain 
development in their larger diversity of use. The sciences 
of substance, of natural objects, grow and ramify themselves 
almost Indefinitely, physical philosophy and organology, in 
their dependencies, shooting out in every direction of obser- 
vation and experiment, at first overshadowed by the specula- 
tive branches above them, but always vivified by them ; 
while in their turn repaying this service by affording sub- 
stantive strength and corrective modification as they grow 
into maturity. 

Such is the history of science, and such the illustration of 
its orderly division, succession, and co-ordination ; it repre- 
sents the compound nature of man, the sources of his powers 
and the order of their development. 

§ 2. Seeking now to understand the history of man in 
past ages, or in distant lands, we must commence by studying 
him in the present, and having mastered him in the past and 
present, we may then be enabled to predict the future. To do 
this, it is required that we do with society as does the chemist 
with the piece of granite, resolving it into its several parts 
and studying each part separately, ascertaining how it woul<l 
act were it left to itself, and comparing what ivoiild he. its 
independent action with tliat we see lo be. its societary action ; 
and then by help of the same law of which the mathematician, 
the i)hysicist, tlie chemist, and the physiologist, avail tliem- 

* Science askj^ the questions, Wliat ? and Wliy ? Tliose asked by 
MaLliematics ai'e, How much ? and Wliere / 



28 CHAPTER I. § 2. 

selves — that of the composition of forces — we may arrive n\ 
the law of the effect. 

That law requires that we study all the causes tending to 
produce a given effect. That effect is Man — the man of the 
past and the present ; and the social philosopher who ex- 
cludes from consideration his feelings and affections, and the 
intellect with which he has been endowed, makes precisely 
the same mistake that would be made by the physical one 
who should look exclusively to gravitation, forgetting heat ; 
and should thence conclude that at no distant day the whole 
material of which the earth is composed would become a 
solid mass, plants, animals and men having disappeared. 
Such is the error of modern economists, and its effects are 
seen in the fact that they present for our consideration a 
mere brute animal, to find a name for which they desecrate 
the word " man," recognized by Adam Smith as expressing 
the idea of a being made in the likeness of its Creator. 

It was well asked by Goethe — " What is all intercourse 
with nature, if by the analytical method we merely occupy 
ourselves with individual material parts, and do not feel the 
breath of the spirit which prescribes to every part its direc- 
tion, and orders or sanctions every deviation by means of an 
inherent law?" And what, we may ask, is the value of an 
analytical process that selects only the "material parts" of 
man— those which are common to himself and the beast — ■ 
and excludes those common to the angels and himself? 
Such is the tendency of Ricardo-Malthusianism, which not 
only does not " feel the breath of the spirit" but even ignores 
the existence of the spirit itself, and is therefore found 
defining what it is pleased to call the natural rate of wages, 
as being " that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, 
one with another, to subsist and perpetuate their race, with- 
out either increase or diminution"* — that is to say, such price 
as will enable some to grow rich and increase their race, 
while others perish of hunger, thirst, and exposure. Such 
are the teachings of a system that has fairly earned the title 
of the "dismal science" — that one the study of which led 
M. Sismondi to the inquiry — " What, then, is wealth every 
thing, and is man absolutely nothing?" In the eyes of most 
modern teachers he is nothing, and can be nothing, because 
they take no note of the qualities by which he is distinguished 
from the brute, and are therefore led to regard him as being a 

* Hicardo. 



OF SCIENCE. 29 

mere instrument to be used b\'^ capital to enal)le its owner to 
obtain compensation for its use. " Some economists," said a 
distinjTuished French economist, shocked at tlie material 
character of the so-called science, "speak as if thej believed 
that men were made for products, not products for men ;''* 
and at that conclusion must all arrive who commence by the 
method of analysis, and close with exclusion of all the higher 
and distinctive qualities of man. 

Docs this method, however, supersede entirely the d jiriori 
one ? Because we pursue the method of analysis, are we 
necessarily precluded from that of synthesis ? By no means. 
The one, however, is the indispensable preparation for the 
other. It was by careful observation of particular facts 
that Le Terrier was led to the grand generalization that a 
new and unobserved planet was bound to exist, and in a 
certain part of the heavens, and there it was almost at 
once discovered. To careful analyses it was due that 
Davy was led to the announcement of the great fact that all 
earths have metallic bases — one of the grandest generaliza- 
tions on record, and one whose truth is being every day 
more and more established. The two methods \vere well 
described by Goethe, when he said that synthesis and analysis 
were "the systole and diastole of human thought," and that 
they were to him "like a second breathing process — never 
separated, ever pulsating." " The vice of the d pr-iori 
method," says the writer from whom this passage is taken, 
" when it wanders from the right path, is not that it r/ofs 
before the facts, and anticipates the tardy conclusions of ex- 
perience, but that it rests contented with its own verdicts, or 
seeking only a partial, hasty confrontation with facts — what 
Bacon calls ' noliones temere a rebus abstractas.' " f 

Science being one and indivisible the method of study 
must in like manner be one. That this is so with regard to 
all the departments of knowledge that underlie social science, 
phy.iics, chemistr}'', and physiology, cannot now be doubted, 
yet it i.s but recently that there has been reason to believe in 
any such connection. With each new discovery the approxi- 
mation becomes more close, and with each we see how 
intimately are the facts of all the earlier and more abstract 
departments of knowledge connected with the progress of 
man toward that state of high development for which he 

* Droz. Eronnmif, Politique. 

f Westminster Iiccie.u\ Oct 18.'J2 : Artinle, Gotlhe as a Man of Scienc: 



30 CHAPTER T. § 2. 

seems to have been intended. From hour to hour, as he 
acquires further control over the various forces existing in 
nature, he is enabled to live in closer connection with his 
fellow-man, to obtain larger supplies of food and clothing, to 
improve his own modes of thought and action, and to furnish 
better instruction to the generation destined to succeed him. 
The knowledge that leads to such results is but the founda- 
tion upon which we are required to build when undertaking 
to construct that higher department denominated Social 
Science, and the instrument that has been so successfully 
used in laying the foundation cannot but be found equally 
useful in the construction of the building itself. 

Mathematics must be used in social science, as it is now in 
every other branch of inquiry, and the more the former is 
used the more the latter takes the form of real science, and 
the more intimate are shown to be its relations with other 
departments of knowledge. The Malthusian law was the 
first instance of its application, and had it proved a true one 
it would have given a precision to political economy of which 
before it had been utterly incapable, making the progress of 
man directly dependent upon the presence or absence of 
certain powers in the soil on which he lived. So, too, with 
Mr. Ricardo's celebrated theory of rent, by which was 
established what he deemed to be the natural division of the 
products of labor. The method of both these great laws was 
right, and the fact of their having adopted it has properly 
placed their authors in the front rank of economists, and has 
given to their works an amount of influence never before 
exercised by any writers on economical science. That they 
fell into the error above described of "seeking only a partial, 
hasty confrontation with facts," and, therefore, furnished the 
world with theories directly the reverse of true, does not 
prevent us from seeing of what infinite advantage to the 
progress of science it would have been to have had the facts 
brought under these relations, if true, nor of how great im- 
portance it must be to have the real facts brought under such 
relations wherever possible. 

Let us, for example, take the following proposition : — 
In the early period of society, when land is abundant and 
people are few in number, labor is unproductive, and of the 
small product, the land-owner or other capitalist takes a 
large proportion, leaving to the laborer, a small one. The 
larger proportion yields, however, but a small amount, and 
both laborer and capitalist are poor — the former so poor that 



OF SCIENCE. 31 

nc is everywlu'rc seen to liave been a slave to the latter. 
Population and wealth, however, increasing, and lalior becom- 
ing more productive, the land-owner's share diminishes in its 
proporlion, but increases in its amount. The lal)orer's share 
increases not only in its amount, but also in its proportion, 
and the more rapid the increase in the productiveness of his 
labor, the greater is the proportion of tiie augmented quantity 
retained by him ; and thus, while the interests of l)oth are in 
perfect harmony with each other, there is a constant tendency 
towards the establishment of an equality of condition — tlie 
slave of the early period becoming the free man of the latter 
one. 

Admitting this to be true — and if so, it establishes directly 
the reverse of what was propounded by Messrs. Malthas and 
Ricardo — we have here the distinct expression of a nuitlie- 
niatical relation between the concomitant variations of power 
of man and matter — of the man representing only his own 
faculties, and of the man representing the accumulated results 
of human faculties upon matter and its forces. Tlie )n"()l)l(.'m 
of social science, and the one attempted to be solved by those 
writers, is, what are the relations of man and the outside 
material world. They change as we see, men becoming in 
some countries from year to year more and more the masters, 
and in others, the slaves of nature. In what manner is it 
that changes in one tend to produce further changes in itself, 
or to etfect changes in the otiier ? To this question we need 
a mathematical answer, and until it shall be furnished — as it 
is believed to be in the above very simple proposition — 
political economy can bear only the same relation to social 
science that the observations of the Chaldeau shepherds bear 
to modern astronomy. 

Social science can scarcely be said yet to have existence. 
That it might exist, it was required first to obtain the 
pliysical, chemical, and physiological knowledg^ required for 
tMial)ling us to observe how it is that man is enabled to 
obtain command over the various forces provided for his use, 
and to pass from being the slave to becoming the master of 
nature. " Man," says Goethe, " only knows himself in as far 
as he knows external nature," and it was needed that the 
more abstract and general departments of knowledge should 
acquire a state of high development before we could advan- 
tageously enter upon the study of the highly concrete and 
special, and infinitely varial)le, science of the laws by which 
man is governed in his r<'latinns with the external world, una 



32 CHAPTER I. § 2. 

with his fellow-man. Chemistry and physiology are both, 
however, of recent date. A century since, men knew nothing 
of the composition of the air they breathed, and it is within 
that period that Haller laid the foundation of the physio- 
logical science that now exists. In this state of things there 
could be but little progress towards understanding how far it 
was in the power of man to compel the earth to yield the 
supplies required for a steadily increasing population ; and 
without that knowledge there could be no such thing as 
social science. 

Science requires laws, and laws are but universal truths — 
truths to which no exceptions can be found. Those obtained, 
harmony and order take the place of chaos, and we are led to 
recognize effects as having been the natural results of certain 
definite causes, and to look for the reappearance of similar 
effects when like causes shall again occur, as did the first man 
when he had definitely connected the presence and absence 
of light with the rising and setting of the sun. 

Where, however, is there in social science a proposition 
whose truth is universally admitted ? Tliere is not even 
a single one. A century since, the strength of a nation 
was regai'ded as t-ending to increase with augmentation 
of its numbers, but now we are taught that such increase 
brings with it weakness instead of strength. From year to 
year we have new theories of the laws of population, and 
new modifications of the old one ; and the question of the 
laws governing the distribution of the proceeds of labor is 
now discussed as vigorously as it was fifty years since. Of 
the disciples of Messieurs Malthus and Ricai-do no two are 
quite agreed as to what it was that their masters really meant 
to teach. The strongest advocates for the removal of all 
restrictions on trade in cloth are found among the fiercest 
opponents of freedom in the trade in money; and among the 
most enthusiastic friends of competition for the sale of 
merchandise, are to be found the most decided opponents 
of competition for the purchase of the laborer's time and 
talents. Teachers who rejoice in every thing tending to in- 
crease the prices of cloth and' iron, as leading to improve- 
ment in the condition of man, are found among the foremost 
of those who deprecate advance in the price of the laborer's 
services, as tending to diminution of power for the mainte- 
nance of trade. All is therefore confusion, and nothing is 
settled, no approach having yet been maae even lu an under- 
standing as to the meaning of the various terms in common 



OF SCIENCE. 33 

use. "The great defect of Adam Smith, and of otir ocono- 
inists in general," says Archbishop Wliately, " is the want 
of definitions," and in proof of this he gives his readers the 
numerous and widely different ones furnished by the most 
distinguished teachers in relation to the highly iniportant 
terms, Value, Wealth, Labor, Capital, Rents, Wages, and 
Profits, and shows that, for want of clear conceptions, the 
same word is used by the same writer at one time in a manner 
totally inconsistent with that in which he uses it at another. 
To that list he might, as he most truly says, add many others 
"which are often used without any more explanation, or any 
more suspicion of their re(piiring it, than the words ' triangle, 
or ' twenty'" — and as a consequence of this it is that, as wi!\ 
be hereafter shown, words of the highest importance are 
used by distinguished writers as being entirely synonymous, 
when really expressing not only difierent, but directly oppo- 
site ideas. 

§ 3. Of all the departments of knowledge. Social Science 
is the most concrete and special, the most dependent on 
the earlier and more abstract departments of science, the 
one in which the facts are most difficult of collection and 
analysis, and therefore the last to obtain development. Of 
all, too, it is the only one that affects the interests of men, 
their feelings, passions, prejudices, and therefore the one 
in which it is most difficult to find men collating facts with 
the sole view to deduce from them the knowledge they are 
calculated to afford. Treating, as it does, of the relations 
between man and man, it has everywhere to meet the objec- 
tion of those who seek the enjoyment of power and privilege 
at the cost of their fellow-men. The sovereign holds in small 
respect the science that would teach his subjects to doubt 
the propriety of his exercise of power by the grace of God. 
The soldier cannot believe in one that looks to the annihila- 
tion of his trade, nor can the monopolist readily be made to 
believe in the advantages of competition. The politician 
lives by managing the affairs of others, and he«has small 
desire to see the people taught the projier management of 
their own concerns. All these men profit by teaching fal.«e- 
hood, and therefore frown upon those who would desire to 
teach the truth. The landlord believes in one doctrine and 
his tenant in another, while the payer of wages looks at all 
questions from a point of sight directly the opposite of tho 
one occupied by him to whom the wages arc paid. 



34 CHAPTER I. § 3. 

We here raeet a difficulty with which, as has been already 
said, no other science has had to contend. Astronomy has 
wrought its way to its present prodigious height with but 
temporary opposition from the schools, because no one was 
personally interested in continuing to teach the revolution 
of the sun around the earth. For a time the teachers, secular 
and spiritual, were disposed to deny the movement of the 
latter, but the fact was proved, and opposition ceased Such, 
too, was the case when geology began to teach that the 
earth had had a longer existence than previously had been 
believed. The schools that represented by-gone days did 
then as they had done in the days of Copernicus and Galileo, 
denouncing as heretics all who doubted the accuracy of the 
received chronology, but short as is the time that has since 
elapsed the opposition has already disappeared. Franklin, 
Dalton, Wollasion, and Berzelius prosecuted their inquiries 
without fear of opposition, for their discoveries were unlikely 
to affect injurious]}^ the pockets of land-owners, merchants, 
or politicians. Social science is, however, still to a great 
extent in the hands of the schoolmen, backed everywhere by 
those who profit by the ignorance and the weakness of the 
people. 

The occupants of academic chairs in Austria may not 
teach what is unfavorable to the divine rights of kings, 
or favorable to increase of popular rights. The doctrines 
of the schools of France vary from time to time as despotism 
yields to the people, or the people yield to it. The landed 
aristocracy of England were gratified when Mr. Malthus 
satisfied it that the poverty and misery of the people resulted 
necessarily from a great law emanating from an all-wise and 
all-benevolent Creator ; and the manufacturing one is equally 
so when it sees, as it thinks, the fact established that the 
general interests of the country are to be promoted l)y mea- 
sures looking to the production of an abundant supply of 
cheap, or badly paid, labor. 

The system of these United States being based upon the 
idea of an entire political equality, we might, perhaps, be 
warranted in looking to our teachers for something different, 
even if not better, but if we should do so we should, in 
general, be disappointed. With few and slight exceptions, 
our professors teach the same that is taught abroad by men 
who live by inculcating the divine rights of kings; and they 
teach self-government by the aid of books from which their 
pupils learn that the greater the tendcM'cy towards equality 



OF SCIENCE. 35 

tlie greoter is tlie liatred among tlie several class(>s of which 
society is composed. Social science, as taught in some of 
tlie colleges of this country and of Europe, is now on a level 
with the chemical science of a century since ; and there it 
will remain so long as its teachers shall continue to look in- 
wards to their own minds and invent theories, instead of 
looking outwards to the great laboratory of the world for the 
collection of facts with a view to the discovcri/ of laws. In 
default of such laws, they are constantly repeating ])hrases 
that have no real meaning, and thai tend, as Goethe most 
truly says, to "ossify the organs of intelligence," of both the 
teacher and his pupil. 

The state in which it now exists is what M. Comte is 
accustomed to denominate the metaphysical one,* and there it 
must remain until its teachers shall waken to the fact, that 
there is but one system of laws for the government of all 
matter, whether existing in the form of a piece of coal, a tree, 
a horse, or a man, and but one mode of study for all depart- 
ments of it. 

The law^s of physical science are equally those of social 
science, and in every effort to discover the former we are but 
j)aving the way for the discovery of the latter. " The entire 
succession of men," says Pascal, " through the whole course 
of ages, must be regarded as one man, always living, and 
incessantly learning ;" and among the men who have most 
largely contributed towards the foundation of a true social 
science are to be ranked the eminent teachers to whose labors 
we have been so much indebted for the wonderful develop- 
ment of physical, chemical, and physiological science in the 
last and present centuries. 

The later man is, tiierefore, the one possessing the most 
of that knowledge of the societary action required for com- 
])rehending the causes of the various effects recorded in the 
jiages of history, and for predicting those which must result 
in future from causes now existing. The early man possessed 
little of science but the instrument (mathematics) recpiired 
for its acquisition, and what of it he did acquire was purely 
physical in its character and most limited in its extent. The 

* The true method of science consists in proceeding from the 
near to the distant, from the simple to the compound, from the 
known to the unknown, from the parts to the wliole. This is 
called the Analytical or Mathematical method. The reverse is that 
called tlie Metapliysical ; and this it is tliat has hitherto heen i)ur 
sued in social science. 



J6 CHAPTER I. § 3. 

present one is in possession not only of physical science to 
an extent that is wonderful compared with what existed a 
century since, but to this he has added the chemical and 
physiological sciences then scarcely known, and has proved 
that the laws of the former and more abstract are equally 
those of the latter more concrete and special ones. If, then, 
there is truth in the suggestion of Pascal that we are to con- 
sider the endless succession of men as one man, may it not be 
that the laws of all the earlier and more abstract departments 
of science will be found to be equally true in reference to 
that highly concrete and special one which embraces the rela- 
tions of man in society, and that, therefore, all science will 
prove to be but one, its parts differing as do the celers of the 
spectrum, but producing, as does the sun's ray, undec&mposed, 
one white and bright light '{ To show that such is certainly 
the case is the object of the present work. 



Turning again to .the figure, the reader will remark that the 
branch of science of which it is proposed now to treat, finds its 
place betvi^een those of material and mental life, organology 
and psychology, and that it is through it that both must look 
for their development. That the mind may be active and 
vigorous, the body must be properly cared for. Social Science 
looks to the care of both. It is the science of the relations of 
man with the physical world over which it is given to him to 
rule, and with that social one in which it is given to him to 
perform a part. Upon the nature of those relations depends 
the stimulation into activity of those qualities which con- 
stitute the real man — those by which he stands distinguished 
from other animals. What they are it is proposed now to 
show. 



OF MAN. 37 

CHAPTER II. 

OF MAN — THE SUBJECT OP SOCIAL SCIENCE 

j 1. Association essential to the existence of man. As the planets gravitate to each other, 
Man tends towards his fellow-man. Local centres balance and distribute the masse? 
in ordar and harmony. Centralization and decentralization analogous, and alike nece* 
Bary, among planets and societies. Illustrative history of the nations. Freedom of 
association maintained by the balancing attractions. The welfare of the individual, 
and of the aggi'egate, dependent upon theii' freedom. 

g 2. Individuality of man proportioned to the diversity of his endowments and activities. 
Free association developes individuality. Variety in unity, and peace in diversity. The 
balance of worlds, and of societies, maintained by counter-balance. 

g 3. Responsibility of man measured by his individuality. Historic illustrations. Associa- 
tion, individuahty, and lesponsibility, grow and decline together. 

g i. Man a being of growth and progress. Progress is motion requiring attraction, 
depending upon reciprocal action, and implying individuality and association. — Pro- 
gress is in the ratio of these conditions. The laws of being the same in matter, man, 
and communities. Definition of social science. 

§ 1. Man, the molecule of society, is the subject of Social 
Science. Like all other animals, he requires food and sleep ; 
but his greatest need is that of Association with his fellow- 
men. Born the most helpless of animals, he requires the 
largest care in infancy. Capable of acquiring the highest 
degree of knowledge, he is yet destitute of tlie instinct of 
the bee, the beaver, and other animals. Dependent for all 
his knowledge on the experience of himself or others, he 
needs language for the interchange of thought ; and there can 
be no language without association. Isolate him, and he 
loses the power of speech, and with it the reasoning faculty : 
restore him to society, and with the return of speech he 
becomes again the reasoning man. 

We have here the great law of molecular gravitation as 
the indispensable condition of the existence of the being 
known as man. The particles of matter have each an inde- 
pendent existence, the atom of oxygen, or the grain of sand 
being perfect in itself. The tree produces the same fruits 
when standing alone, as do those which remain in their native 
groves; and each dog, cat, or rabl)it, possesses all its powers 
in a state of entire isolation. Such not being the case with 
man, he tends of necessity to gravitate towards his felluw- 
man. Of all animals he is the most gregarious ; and the 
greater the number collected in a given space, the greater is 
the attractive force that is there exerted, as was shown in 
the cities of the ancient world, — Nineveli and l>al)yloii, Alhen.>j 



38 CHAPTER II. § 1. 

and Rome ; and as is now shown in Paris and London, New 
York and Philadelphia. Gravitation is here, as everywhere, 
in the direct ratio of the mass, and the inverse one of the 
distance. 

Why then do not all men tend to come together on a single 
spot ? Because of that same simple and universal law which 
maintains the beautiful order of the solar system, Counter- 
attraction. Each of the great bodies of which the universe 
is composed, has its own centre of attraction, which holds 
its parts together. Were those centres annihilated, all would 
crumble at once to ruin. In like manner, we see everywhere 
throughout the world, local centres of attraction exercising 
an amount of influence that is in near proportion to their 
size, and to the mental development of their population, 

London and Paris may be regarded as the rival suns of 
Europe ; and but for the counter-attraction of local centres, 
like Vienna and Berlin, Florence, Brussels, and other cities, 
Europe would present one great centralized system, whose 
population was tending always tow^ards them, there to make 
their exchanges, and thence to receive their laws. So, too, 
is it in these United States. The tendency is strong towards 
New York, despite the attractions of local centres such as 
Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, and 
the capitals of the several States. Were we to obliterate 
these local centres, and place in New York a strong central- 
ized government, like those of England, France, and Russia, 
that city would soon far exceed the present size of London. 
The local governments would fall to pieces, and voluntary 
association would speedily be replaced by the forced associa- 
tion of masters and dependents. Every village requiring to 
have a road, bridge, or bank, would be forced to apply at 
the great city, paying innumerable officers, as is now the case 
in France, before obtaining the desired permission. Every 
community suffering from any oppression would find its voice 
drowned by those who profited by the abuse, as is the case 
with complaints to Parliament from Ireland or India. Instead 
of obtaining the required laws without cost from the little 
capital, they would be compelled to employ agents, who, as 
is now the case in England, would accumulate fortunes at 
their expense. Much of this is already seen at Washington, 
but very trivial is it compared with what it would be were 
all the business transacted by State Legislatures and County 
Boards, brought before Congress, as it now is before the 
3ritish Parliament. 



OF MAN. 3y 

The centralizing tendency of the State Capital is, in it3 
lurn, neutralized by the attraction of the various county- 
(Seats. Obliterate these, and the State Capital would grow 
rapidly, while local associations would be in a great degree 
annihilated. 

Further, whatever tends to the production of local employ- 
ment for time and talent, gives value to land, promotes its 
division, and enables parents and children to remain in closer 
connection with each other. On the contrary, whatever 
diminishes local employment, tends to the consolidation of 
land, the breaking up of families, the increase of absenteeism, 
and the building up of great cities at the expense of the 
country at large. 

History furnishes evidence that the tendency to association, 
without which the human animal cannot become the true 
Man, has everywhere grown with the growth of local centres 
of attraction, and declined with their diecline. Such centres 
existed in nearly all the Grecian Islands, while Laconia and 
Attica, Bceotia, Argos, and other States, possessed each its 
own. Local association there existed to an extent till then 
unequalled in the world, yet the tendency towards general 
association was shown in the establishment of the Olympic 
and other games, which drew together the distinguished n:'.:ii 
of Greece, as well as those of Italy and Asia. The Ampnic- 
tyonic League gave further evidence of the tendency to 
general as a consequence of local association ; but, unhajjpily, 
tlie attractive power of this central sun was insufficient for 
maintaining order among the planets, w'hich, as a consequence, 
frequently shot madly from their spheres, and jostled one 
another. 

Destroy local centres, and centralize power in the hands of 
the general government, and there will be dimiimiion in the 
power of voluntary association for the purposes of peace, and 
a tendency towards involuntary association for the purposes 
of war. " Destroy the central government, and conflicts 
amongst the States become inevitable. The people of 
Greece had all this yet to learn ; and their frequent \yars 
at length resulted in the establishment of a highly centralized 
goverimient, controlling the funds contributed by subject 
cities, whose people, having lost the power of defending 
their own rights, had to seek justice at the hands of Athens. 
To that city resorted all who sought power or profit, all who 
were unable to obtain a living at home, and all who pre- 
ferred plunder to labor ; until at length, as voluntary associa- 



40 CHAPTER II. § 1. 

tion disappeared, Attica became to a great extent the prop- 
erty of a single individual, surrounded by slaves, and all the 
States of Greece became involved in one common ruin. 

So was it, too, in early Italy, which possessed numerous 
cities, each the centre of a district in which local association 
existed in a high degree. In time, however, as Rome, per- 
petually disturbing her weaker neighbors, grew by help of 
plunder, power became centralized within her walls, her 
people became more and more dependent on the public 
treasury, and voluntary association gradually disappeared — 
all Italy presenting thenceforward the spectacle of great 
landlords occupying palaces and surrounded by troops of 
slaves. 

Looking next to modern Italy, we see Milan, Genoa, 
Venice, Florence, Rome, and other cities, each a local centre 
such as had once existed among the Greeks. For want, 
however, of a sun with attractive force sufficient for the 
maintenance of harmony, they were perpetually at war among 
themselves, thereby enabling Austria and France to become 
masters of the peninsula, after which the habit of voluntary 
association wholly disappeared. 

India had once numerous centres of attraction. Besides 
its various capitals, each village was a self-governing com- 
munity, in which the power of association existed to an 
extent unknown elsewhere ; but with the centralization of 
power in Calcutta it has almost entirely disappeared. 

Spain once had numerous local centres. Association 
existed to a great extent, not only amongst the enlightened 
Moors, but also amongst those of the Christian faith. The 
discovery of the New World, of which the government 
became the absentee landlord, unduly increasing the central 
power, local activity and association declined, and weakness 
and depopulation were the necessary consequences. 

Germany is the home of European decentralization, .f 
jealousy of central power, and of zeal for local rights. Local 
association having steadily grown, it has been followed up, 
in our own day, by the formation of the ZoUverein, or Customs 
Union, one of the most important events in modern European 
history. Germany, however, like Greece, wanting the central 
sun round which the numerous planets might peacefully 
revolve, has been retarded in civilization by the interference 
of foreign powers, who have stirred up internal discord. 
Strong for defence, she has been weak for offence, and has 
shown no such tendency towards wars for conquest as ha.s 



OF MAN. 41 

hocu exliibited by bor liigbl}' centralized neigbljor, France 
Tbougb abounding in local centres of attraction, sbe lias bad 
no great central city to direct tbe modes of tbougbt ; and to 
tins it is due, tbat Germany is now rapidly taking tbe posi- 
tion of the great intellectual centre of Europe, and even of 
tbe world. 

Amongst tbe states of Germany, Prussia is pre-eminent for 
a policy tending to tbe maintenance of local centres. All 
tbe ancient divisions, from tbe communes to tbe provinces, 
bave been preserved, and tbeir rigbts respected, in con.se- 
quence of wbicb tbe people advance rapidly in freedom as 
tbe state advances in power. Under tbe lead of Prussia, 
jS'ortbern Germany bas been brougbt under a great federal 
Kysiem wbicb places internal commerce on a footing very 
similar to that of these United States. 

Xo state in Europe bas, more than Switzerland, exhibited 
a tendency to decentralization, and to tbat peaceful association 
within which gives strength for resistance to attacks from 
without. 

In France, the revolution of 1T89 annihilated the local 
governments and thus increased centralization, the conse- 
quences of which are seen in a perpetual succession of wars 
and revolutions. Much was done towards decentralization 
when the lands of tbe Church, and of absentee nobles, were 
divided amongst the people, and to this it is partly due that 
France bas grown in strength, notwithstanding the extraor- 
dinary centralization of her system. 

Belgium and Holland present remarkable instances of tbe 
tendency of local action to produce habits of association. Jn 
both, tbe towns were numerous ; and the effect of com- 
bined action is seen in tbe wonderful productiveness of what 
was originally one of tbe poorest of European countries. 

In no part of Europe was the division of land so complete 
as in Norway, even before the Norman Conquest of England. 
The tendency of local attraction to produce habits of associa- 
tion was shown in the development of a popular literatua; 
wbicb diffused a common intelligence throughout all parts 
of the social body. The skill exhibited in working iron, anil 
the great diversification of employments, furnish striking 
evidence of tbe existence of the habit of combination at tbat 
early period. The same habit still exists, giving to this 
little people a force of resistance to centralization that bas 
recently been exhibited in a manner scarcely paralleled in 
history. 



42 CHAPTER 11. § 2. 

The attraction of local centres in the British Islands, 
formerly so great, has long steadily diuiinished. Edinburgh, 
once the metropolis of a kingdom, has become a mere pro- 
vincial city ; while Dublin, once the seat of an independent 
Parliament, has so declined, that were it not the place where 
a representative of majesty holds his occasional levees, it 
would scarcely now be heard of. London and Liverpool, 
Manchester and Birmingham, have grown rapidly; but with 
these exceptions, the population was stationary in the decade 
ending with 185L Everywhere is seen a steady tendency 
towards centralization, with decrease of local attraction, in- 
crease of absenteeism, and decline in the power of voluntary 
association, — the latter strikingly shown in the emigration 
of the few past years. With every step in that direction 
is seen an increase in the necessity for involuntary associa- 
tion, manifested by an increase in fleets and armies, and in 
the amount of contributions required for their support. 

The Northern States of the Union present such a com- 
bination of the centralizing and decentralizing forces as has 
not been elsewhere equalled ; and there we find, in the 
highest degree, the tendency to local action for the erection 
of schools, the making of roads, and for every other imagin- 
able purpose. In the Southern States the reverse of this is 
seen ; masters owning men who may not even sell their labor, 
or exchange its products. This is centralization ; and hence 
it is that we here see so great a tendency to disturbance of 
the power of association elsewhere. All the wars of the 
Union have here had their origin. 

Barbarism is the necessary consequence of the absence of 
Association. Deprived of this, Man, losing his distinctive 
qualities, ceases to be the subject of Social Science. 

§ 2. The next distinctive quality of man is Individuality. 
Each animal is the type of all his species ; but in man we 
find differences of tastes, feelings, and capacities almost as 
numerous as are those of the human countenance. That 
these diffe'rences may be developed he needs association with 
his fellows ; and their highest development is found in towns 
and cities, where there is the greatest variety of employment, 
and therefore the greatest power of association. 

" The more imperfect a being," says Goethe, " the more do 
its parts resemble each other, and the more do the parts 
resemble the whole. The more perfect a being, the more dis- 
similar are the parts. In the former case, the parts are 



OF MAN. 43 

more or less a repetition of tlio whole ; in tlio latter, they 
are totally unlike the whole. The more the parts resemble 
each other, the less is the subordination of one to the other, 
subordination of parts indicating a high grade of organiza- 
tion." 

Tliis is as true of societies as it is of plants and animals. 
The more imperfect they are, the less is the variety of em- 
ployments and the smaller the development of intellect, and 
the more do the parts resemble each other, as is seen in all 
purely agricultural countries. The greater the variety of 
employments, the greater the demand for intellectual effort, 
the more dissimilar become the parts, and the more perfect 
becomes the whole ; as is seen by comparing a purely agri- 
cultural district with one in which agriculture, manufactures, 
and commerce are happily combined. Difference is essential 
to association. The farmer does not need to associate with 
his brother farmer, but with the carpenter, the blacksmith, 
and the miller; as does the miller with the mason and the 
farmer. In every society there exists a vast amount of in- 
tellectual power that is wasted f(jr want of the demand 
afforded by variety in the demands for human service. Life 
being a " mutual exchange of relations," where difference 
does not exist, exchanges cannot take place ; and the de- 
velopment of individuality has ever been in the ratio of the 
power of man to combine with his fellow-men. 

That power, as we have seen, has always existed in the 
ratio of the equal action of the centralizing and decentralizing 
forces. Its existence was manifested in the highest degree 
in Greece just prior to the invasion of Xerxes, and then and 
there we find the greatest development of intellectual power. 
To the men produced in that period the age of Pericles owes 
its illustration. The destruction of Athens by the Persian 
armies brought with it the conversion of the citizens into 
soldiers, with increase of centralization, and decline in the 
power of voluntary association and of individuality ; until 
at length, the free citizen having disappeared, the slave 
alone is found cultivating the lands of Attica. So, likewise, 
was it in Italy, the highest individuality having existed when 
the Campagna was filled with cities. Following the decline 
of these, the great city grew, filled with paupers, the capital 
of a land tilled by slaves. So, now, throughout the East, 
society is divided into two great parts : the men who toil, 
and those who live on the product of their toil. As between 
these there can be no association, the chain of society wants 



44 CHAPTER 11. § 2. 

tlie connecting links, and there is none of that motion among 
the parts needed for developing tlie power of each and all. 

The numerous Italian towns of the Middle Ages were 
remarkable for the motion by means of which individuality is 
developed. So, likewise, in Belgium and in Spain prior 
to the centralization which followed the expulsion of the 
Moors, and the discovery of the gold and silver deposits of 
the Western Continent. Such, too, was the case in each of 
the several parts of. the United Kingdom. Ireland, at the 
close of the last century, gave to the world such men as 
Burke, Flood, Grattan, Sheridan, and Wellington ; but, cen- 
tralization having greatly grown, individuality has passed 
away. Scotland, too, a century since, possessed a body of 
men as distinguished as any in Europe ; but her local institu- 
tions have since decayed, and we are now told that she has 
"few individual thinkers," the mind of the whole country 
being "cast in the mould of English universities," a state of 
things "unfavorable to originality and power of thought." 

In England the progress of centralization has caused an 
increase of pauperism, and a decline of individuality ; the 
small proprietors having given way to the farmer with his 
hired laborers, and the great manufacturer surrounded by his 
hosts of operatives. London grows enormously at the expense 
of the country at large ; and thus does centralization produce 
the disease of over-population ; a disease which is, as we 
are told, to be cured by a colonization tending still farther to 
diminish the power of association. 

In France, in the days of Louis XIY., nearly the whole 
land was in the hands of a few great proprietors and dig- 
nitaries of the Church, who were mere dependents on the 
sovereign will. The right to labor was a privilege exercised 
at the pleasure of the monarch ; and men were forbidden on 
pain of death to worship God according to their consciences. 

In the Northern States of the American Union, centraliza- 
tion being very limited, and association free, individuality 
exists to a degi'ee unknown elsewhere ; the feeling that every 
man can rise if he will, furnishing the strongest inducement 
to strive for the attainment of knowledge. In the Southern 
States association can take place only through the master, 
so that there is little individuality. 

The more perfectly the local attraction counterbalances 
that of the centre — the more society tends to conform to the 
iaws that govern our system of worlds — the more harmonious 
oiust be the action of all the parts, and the greater the tend- 



OF MAN. 45 

oncy towards voluntary association, towards the development 
of individual powers, and towards the maintenance of peace 
at home and abroad. 

§ 3. The next cpiality which distinguishes man from the 
animals, is Responsibility ibr his actions, before his Creator 
and his fellow-men. 

The slave is not responsible ; he but obeys his master. 
The soldier is not responsible for the murders he commits ; he 
is but an instrument in the hands of his superior officer, who 
in turn but obeys the orders of the State. The pauper is not 
responsible, though often held to be so by his neighbor men. 
The savage slays his fellow-men, and exhibits their scalps 
as evidence of his cunning or his courage. The soldier 
boasts of his prowess, and gladly enumerates those who have 
fallen by his sword. The warlike nation prides itself on the 
glory acquired at the cost of thousands of lives, and decorates 
its galleries with pictures plundered from their rightful owners, 
while generals and admirals live in affluence on their portion 
of the plunder. With growing individuality men learn to 
call such acts by their only true and proper names — robbery 
and murder. 

The Spartans permitted no responsibility of parents for 
their children ; and they sought to prevent the growth of 
wealth, while surrounding themselves with slaves to whom 
all individual will was utterly denied. In Attica, on the con- 
trary, though slaves were numerous, labor was held in much 
higher honor, and diversity of employment caused great de- 
mand for intellectual effort. As a consequence of this the 
rights of parents were respected, while those of the children 
were fully cared for by the laws of Solon. 

In the East, and in Africa, where individuality has no 
existence, parents kill their children, and children exjjosc 
their aged and helpless parents. In highly centralized 
P'rance, foundling hospitals abound ; and it is but recently 
that any effort has been made to diffuse education among the 
masses of the people. With the growth of centralizatiun in 
England, child-murder has taken the place occupied by the 
foundling hospitals in France.* Little provision has beeu 

* It was declared by the coroner of Leeds, and assented to as 
probable by the surgeon, that there were, as near a.s could be cal- 
culated, about three hundred children put to death yearly in Leeds 
alone, that were not registered by the law. In other words, tliree 
hundred infants were murdered to avoid the consequences of tlieii 
living ; and these murders, as the coroner said, are never dete?<"'l. 
--Leader. * 



46 CH AFTER II. § 3. 

made for the proper education of the people, and the feeling 
of responsibility declines with the decline of individuality 
that has attended the consolidation of the land, and the 
substitution of day laborers for small proprietors. 

In decentralized Germany there is a steady increase in the 
provision for education. It is in the Northern States of the 
American Union, however, that we find the strongest feeling 
of responsibility in this regard. The system of universal 
education commenced in Massachusetts by the early settlers, 
has made its way through New England, New York, Penn- 
sylvania, and all the Western States ; aided in these latter 
by grants of land from the general government expressly 
devoted to this object. New York, unaided, exhibits in her 
public schools, 900,000 students, with school libraries con- 
taining now 2,000,000 of volumes. The public schools of 
Pennsylvania contain 650,000 students, while the young State 
of Wisconsin, in this respect, rivals her elder sisters. 

In no part of the world is education the object of so much 
attention as in the Northern States, whereas in the highly 
centralized South all instruction of the laboring class is by 
law prohibited. As a consequence, schools of any kind are 
few, and the proportion of uninstructed among even the 
white population is extremely great. 

Kesponsibility, Individuality, and Association thus grow 
together ; and they everywhere advance in proportion as the 
social government approaches to the system which maintains 
the wonderful harmony of the heavens. 

§ 4. Lastly, man is distinguished by his Capacity for 
Progress. The hare, the ox, and the camel, are now what 
they were in the days of Homer — man alone recording his 
experience and profiting by that of his predecessors. That 
there maybe progress, there must be motion; which is itself 
the result of the incessant decomposition and recomposition 
of matter. To have motion there must be heat. Vital heat 
results from chemical action, the fuel being food. Social 
heat results from the combination produced by difference. 
The more rapid the consumption of food) either material or 
intellectual, the greater will be the heat resulting, and the 
more rapid the increase of power to replace the food con- 
sumed. 

The laws here given are those which govern matter in all its 
forms, whether that of coal, iron, stones, clay, corn, oxen or 
men. Jf true of communities they must be equally so of 



OP MAN. 47 

each and every one of its members ; as arc those relating to 
the atmosphere at large in reference to the countless atom? 
of which it is composed.* 

Social Science treating of man in his efforts for the 
maintenance and improvement of his condition, it may be 
now defined as being: — The Science of (he lawi-- w/iich 
[joveni man in his efforta to secure for himself (he hvjhenl 
Individuality, and tl\e greatest power of Association with 
his fellow-men. 

* " To Nature nothing can be added ; from Nature nothing can he 
taken away ; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost 
man can do in the pursuit of physical trutli, or in the applications 
of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never- 
varying total, and out of one of them to form another. The law 
of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. 
Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves, — magnitude 
may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude, — 
asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into 
florae and faunae, and florae and faunae melt in air, — the flux of 
power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, 
and all terrestrial energy, — the manifestations of life, as well as 
the display of phenomena, are but the nio<lulatious of its rhythm." 
— Tindall. Heat considered as a Mode of Motion. 

Tl^e following account of an experiment made before the Royal 
Institution of London exliibits the manner in which heat is gener- 
ated by means of motion : 

"An instrument was exhibited by means of which the temperature 
of a small quantity of water contained in a shallow circular case, 
provided with vanes in its top and bottom, and violently agitate<l 
by a circular disc provided with similar vanes, and made to turn 
rapidly round, could easily be raised in temperature several degrees 
in a few minutes by the power of a man, and by means of which 
steam-power ai)plied to turn the disc had raised the temperature 
of the water by tliirty degrees in half an hour. The bearintrs of the 
sliaft, to the end of which the disc was attached, were entirely 
external ; so that there was no friction of solids under the water, 
and no way of accounting for the heat developed excej)! by the 
friction in the fluid itself. It was pointed out that the heat thus 
obtained is not produced from a source, but is generated; and that what 
is called into existence by the work of a man's arm cannot be 
matter." — Annual of Scientijic Discoceri], 1853, p. IS-J 



48 CHAI'TER III. § 1. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 

J 1 . Quantity of matter not susceptible of increase. Susceptible of being changed in 
Ijlace and in form. Constantly taking new and higher forms — passing from the inorganic 
to the organic, and ending in man. Man's power limited to the direction of the natunil 
forces. Law of endless circulation. 

g 2. Preparation of the earth for the reception of man. 

g 3. Man, in common with othet animals, a consumer of food. His mission, on this earth, 
so to direct the natural forces, as to cause the soil to yield larger supplies of the com 
modities requu-ed for his use. Conditions upon which, alone, those supplies can be 
augmented. 

g 1. Law of the relative increase in the numbers of Mankind, and in the supply of 
food. 

g 5. Malthnsian law of population. Teaches, that while the tendency of matter to 
assume the lowest forms, augments in an arithmetical ratio only, when it seeks to 
attain the highest form, that tendency is found existing in a geometrical one. 

§ 1. That the power of association may increase, popula- 
tion must increase in density. That it has done so is shown 
in the fact, that the population of France has doubled since 
the beginning of the last century, and that of Great Britain 
during the present one ; while the numbers of New York 
and Massachusetts, which sixty years since were but 700,000, 
have now arrived at more than 4,000,000. 

As, however, the quantity of matter cannot increase, the 
changes thus indicated tend to prove that portions of it must 
have assumed higher forms, passing from the simple ones 
of granite, clay, shale, .or sand, to the complex ones of the 
bones, muscles, or brains of men. 

With this increase in the number of persons needing to 
be fed, there has been required a corresponding one in the 
quantity of animal and vegetable food ; and, that this might 
be furnished, it has been necessary that other portions of the 
rocks, or of the clays and sands resulting from their decompo- 
sition, should take upon themselves the forms of wheat and 
rye, of oats and grass, while others still have passed into the 
forms of sheep and calves, hogs and oxen. That this change 
must have taken place is obvious from the fact, that large as 
has been the increase in the number fo be fed, the facility of 
obtaining food is greater now than at any former period. 
What, however, has been the agency of man in bringing 
about these results ? Let us inquire. 

Force is compounded of matter and motion. Man can 



OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 49 

neither create nor destroy matter, but he can change it in its 
phice and in its form. He cannot alter the existing quantity 
of force, but he can affect its distribution and its mode of 
manifestation. His power resembles that of the wire which 
connects the extremities of the magnetic apparatus, and thus 
produces development of latent forces. Every such develop- 
ment causes matter to assume a different form. In the pro- 
pelling of a steaml)oat, coal and water are decomposed ; and 
with every motion of the human body, the brain and muscles, 
in the giving and the executing of a command, lose a portion 
of their substance, which must be replaced by fresh supplies 
of fuel in the form of food. Matter is thus in perpetual cir- 
culation, and the more rapid the motion, the greater is the 
force produced. 

This circulation has endured from all time, but with every 
step in the progress of the earth towards its present con- 
dition, there has been an increase in the machinery of decom- 
position and recomposition, with a steady tendency towards 
development of the forces which are always latent in mat- 
ter, waiting until man shall come to set them free. Geol- 
ogists inform us that in the Silurian period the animal and 
vegetable life was unifoim in character, and lowest in de- 
velopment. Later, during the period of the coal formation, 
vegetation abounded, but still of the most monotonous char- 
acter, the plants exhibiting that absence of true flowers 
which marks the lowest stages of vegetable life. 

What was the object of all this vegetation ? To produce de- 
composition, and set free the latent forces of nature. In the 
stomach of plants are digested the inorganic elements sup- 
plied by the soil and the air. The constituents of all are : 
carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, the four principal 
elements of the organic creation ; sulphur, phosphorus, chlo- 
rine, lime, potassium, sodium, iron, and a few other inorganic 
substances. These pass into the frame of vegetables ; the 
vegetables are consumed by animals, man in his turn sup- 
porting life by means of the consumption of both. Organic 
bodies are subject to a constant process of renovation, while 
inorganic are fixed in their composition. Man can, to some 
email extent, put together and fashion inert bodies, but the 
lowest form of life, whether vegetable or animal, is wholly 
beyond his reach. 

Vegetables alone can assimilate and organize inorganic 
matter. The vegetable life must therefore precede the ani- 
mal life, which latter needs organic matter for its support 

6 



60 CHAPTER III. § 2. 

Some animals prey upon other and inferior animals, whilo 
themselves furnishing food for beings more highly organized. 
Again, vegetables eliminate oxygen, and exhale it ,into tlie 
air. Animals, on the contrary, absorb oxygen, which com- 
bines with certain parts of the body, burning the combustible 
substances, and thus generating animal heat. Combining 
with the carbon of the food, it produces carbonic acid gas ; 
which, being thrown out of the lungs, is absorbed by the 
leaves of plants ; the carbon separated becomes a part of 
their frame, while the oxygen is restored to the atmosphere. 
Thus animals and vegetables are mutually dependent on 
each other for existence, their elements being interchanged 
through the medium of the atmosphere, " the grand recep- 
tacle from which all things spring, and to which they all 
return." 

§ 2. Development, beginning in the stomach of vegetables, 
is continued in that of animals until the earth becomes fitted 
for the purposes of man, the only being gifted witli power 
to become the lord of nature, while all others remain her 
slaves. 

Looking now over the earth, we see the same forces every- 
where in action, producing new combinations for the support 
of vegetable life, and thus preparing the land, as a residence, 
at first for the lower animals, but ultimately, for man. 

The amount of heat by which the sea water is raised in the 
form of vapor, is estimated as being equal to the power of 
sixteen billions of horses. This vapor, condensing, descends 
in rain, carrying down to the valleys large quantities of soil 
resulting from decomposition of the rocks. Here again we 
find difference producing combination and motion. The 
greater the variety of the particles the richer is the soil pro- 
duced, as is seen in the deltas of such rivers as the Missis- 
sippi, the Ganges, and the Indus. 

Vast quantities of this earth pass into the ocean, to be 
taken up by the myriads of its inhabitants. The minute 
coral insect raises massive walls of limestone, in which two- 
fifths of their weight of carbon are chained down and fast 
imprisoned. New supplies thereof are, however, furnished 
by the escape of carbonic acid gas from innumerable fissures 
in the earth's surface, such as the Grotto del Cane, or the fatal 
'' Valley of Death," the wonder of the isle of Java. Thus 
carbonic acid, like watery vapor, is continually circulating, 
from the atmosphere, through the plant and the animal, and 



OF INCREASE I\ THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 51 

back again to the air, assuming on tlie way the various forms 
tf life. Tlie coral rocks on emerging from the water, become 
covered with loose materials from debris that is wafted 
along the surface by tides and currents. The cocoanut, thus 
brought,' nourished by the organic remains of the insect 
builders, takes root there- and furnishes food and a scanty 
clothing to the first inhabitants. Next, the rocks become 
disintegrated, while the earlier vegetable matter decays ; and 
the two combining furnish a riclier soil, upon which vegt;- 
tation of a higher order takes its place, and in turn prepares 
the soil for still higher forms of life. 

The leaf of the living plant sucks in carbonic acid from the 
air, but gives oif the ox3'gen contained in this gas, retaining 
the carbon alone. The roots drink in water from the soil ; 
and out of carbon and water thus obtained, the plant forms 
starch, sugar or fat, and other substances. The animal 
introduces this starch, sugar or fat, into its stomach, and 
draws in oxygen from the atmosphere by its lungs ; with 
these materials it undoes the labors of the living plant, 
delivering back again from the lungs and the skin both the 
starch and the oxygen in the form of carbonic acid and water. 
The process is clearly represented in the following scheme : — 

Takes in Produces 

Ti PI t ( Carbonic acid by its leaxes; f Oxy<7<-n from its leaves; 

J. lie fiant ■< ^y^^f^,. j^y j(g ,.y-|tg j siiirc/i, etc., iu its solid substance. 



_, , . , ] Starch and /"«< in the 8tom;u.U ; \ Carhnnic acid and xvakr from the 

Xiie Ammai j oxygen into the lungs. \ skiu and the lungs. 

The circle thus begins with taking in carbonic acid and 
water, and ends with the delivery of the same substances. 

§ 3. In the early period of society the changes of form are 
very slow indeed. In the days of the Plantagenets, the yield 
of an acre was but six or eight bushels of wheat. Step l)y 
step, however, as man obtained the command of the various 
forces provided for his use, he obtained thirty, forty, or fifty 
oushels, and of other produce almost as many tons. 

Without vital heat that command could not be obtained, 
and without fuel there could be no sucli heat That fuel, as 
kve see, is food, without which there can be no vital action, 
and thus it is that we reach the point at which man and 
animals stand on a level with each other. In common with 
them all he eats, drinks, and sleeps, and in common with them 
all he must have supplies of fooil. 

The earth is a vast magazine of latent power. liOoseniug 



52 CHAPTER III. § 3. 

the soil to admit the action of the sun and rain, man place.-? 
in it a seed which sprouts, grows by aid of the earth atfd 
atmosphere, and yields the corn required for his support. In 
this, he does no more than does he who feeds the loco- 
motive, placing matter in a situation to be decomposed, and 
thus fitting its atoms for entering into other combinations. 
Combination is motion, and motion gives force. He ploughs 
deeper, digs drains to enable the water to escape, and pre- 
cisely as he thus facilitates the motion of matter, is he 
rewarded by larger returns to his exertions. With the 
increased control over the natural forces thus obtained, he 
obtains a larger quantity of food from a given surface, and is 
thus steadily enabled to live more and more in connection 
with his fellow-man. Association bringing into activity other 
forces, he now turns to use the limestone, coal, and iron 
ore, the decomposition of which supplies materials for organic 
life. The motion thus begun continues, these substances 
rarely again returning to their original state. 

Where vegetation exists without animal life, the mineral 
matter furnished by the soil returns directly to it by the 
process of decay. Not so, however, where vegetable pro- 
duce is consumed by animals. Being then digested, it is 
conveyed to the different parts of the body, the saline matter 
to the blood and tissues, and the phosphate of lime chiefly 
to the bones, composing nearly half their weight. 

These changes are represented as follows : 

Taken in by Produced 

The Plant I'^'^^^^f^.f^^^l'^'^^T''''''''' { Perfect substance of plants. 

^ a. Parts of plants. I Perfect bone, blood, and tissues. 

^ b. The bone and tissues, with oxy- ■< Phosphates and other salts in the 

^ gen froni the lungs. I excretions. 

Excretions of animals, dead ani- rpy,„„-,i,„ric arid limp i^tc- 

mals and plants. - t i'^osp'ionc acid, lime, etc. 

Plants and animals thus return their materials to mother 
earth, and it is upon this condition alone that motion can be 
increased, or even maintained. Our great mother, the Earth, 
(72 ues nothing, but she is willing to lend everything; and 
the larger the demand made upon her, the larger will be the 
supply, provided that man recollect that he is but a borrower 
from a great bank in which punctuality of re-payment is aa 
much required as in the banks of America, France or England. 

That this condition may be complied with, there must be 
association, and difference is indispensable to association 
whether in the social or the material world. The farmer or 
5ugar planter does not need to associate with his brother 



OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. oS 

•ariucr or planter, nor the wool-grower with him who has 
wool to sell ; but they each and all find it advantageous to 
exchange the produce of their labor with the carpenter, tl;e 
blacksmith, the mason, the miner, the furnace-man, the spin- 
)ier, the weaver and the printer, as all these require to pur- 
chase food and the materials of clothing, and to pa}- for them 
Avith their services, or the commodities they have produced. 
Where the producer and consumer are placed side by side 
there is rapid motion of the products of labor, with increased 
l)ower to repay to mother earth what she has lent, and to 
establish a credit with her for larger loans in future. Where, 
on the contrary, there are onh' farmers or planters, and where 
consequently there is but little societary motion, the powers 
of the earth diminish, and the producer and consumer become 
more widel}^ separated, with heavy diminution of both heat 
and force. This is seen in all purely agricultural countries. 
A'irginia and the Carolinas have been steadily engaged in 
exhausting the elements of fertility in the soil, because of the 
absence of consumers, and the necessity for dependence on 
distant markets ; and such, to a great extent, is the case 
throughout our Southern States. The farmer who com- 
mences on rich prairie land, obtains at first forty or fifty 
bushels to the acre ; but the quantity declines from year to 
3'ear, and finally falls to twenty, or often even less. A cen- 
tury since, the farmers of New York were reported as 
obtaining generally twenty-four bushels of wheat per acre, 
but the average now is little more than twelve, while that of 
the rich State of Ohio has fallen yet lower. The power of 
the soil to yield food being the measure of the power of men 
to live together, with each stage of its decline the ability to 
associate diminishes ; as is shown in the remarkable emigra- 
tion now going on from Ohio, the settlement of which is yet 
so recent — from Georgia.with a population of 1,000,000, and 
a territory capable of supporting half the people of the 
Union — and from Alabama, which but forty years ago was 
a wilderness occupied chiefly by a few straggling Indians. 
The consumer mud take his place beside the producer in 
order to enable man to vomjily vcilh the condition on ichivh 
he obtains loans from the great bank of mother earth — the 
simple condition that when he shall have done ivith the capital 
furnished to him he shall return it to the place tchence it 
had been taken. 

Wherever this condition is complied with we see a steady 
increase in the motion of the niatter destined to furnish man 



64 CHAPTER III. § 3. 

with food, and an equally steady increase in the number of 
persons requiring to be supplied, with a constant improve- 
ment in the quantity and quality of the food to be divided 
among the claimants. In the days of the Plantagenets, when 
the population of England little exceeded 2,000,000, an 
acre yielded but six bushels of wheat, and famines were 
frequent. Now, we see 18,000,000 occupying the same 
surface, and obtaining greatly increased quantities of very 
superior food. 

So, likewise, has it been in France. In 1'760 the popula- 
tion was 21,000,000, and the produce of grain 94,500,000 hect- 
olitres ; whereas, in 1840, the former had risen to 34,000,000, 
and the latter to 182,516,000, giving to each and every per- 
son twenty per cent, more in quantity, with great improve- 
ment in the quality of the grain ; and yet the surface 
cultivated had scarcely at all increased. Within this period 
the potato culture has been introduced, and green crops now 
furnish supplies of food two-thirds as great as the whole 
quantity produced less than a century since. The total pro- 
duct has trebled, while the numbers to be fed have increased 
but sixty per cent. A constantly growing diversity of em- 
ployment now enables the French peasant to pay his debts to 
mother earth, returning to her the manure yielded by his 
crops : whereas, when manufactures scarcely existed, famines 
were so numerous and severe, -as sometimes to sweep off a 
large proportion of the widely scattered population. 

So, too, is it in Belgium, Germany, and every other country 
in which diversity of employment facilitates association ; 
while the reverse is seen in all those purely agricultural 
countries which are steadily exhausting their soil, and di- 
minishing the power of association, as in Virginia and Carolina 
on one side of the ocean, Portugal and Turkey on the 
other. 

In proportion as increased motion leads to increased power 
of association, man is enabled to call to his aid other forces 
to be employed in grinding his grain and transporting its 
product to market; in converting his trees into planks and 
preparing them for houses ; and, finally, in carrying his 
messages with such rapidity that time and "space seem almost 
annihilated. At each successive stage of progress in this 
direction, he finds himself enabled more and more to 
devote his time and mind to the production of the grain to 
be ground, the trees to be sawed, and the wool to be spun ; 
and thus to make provision for increased association with his 



01 INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 55 

fellow-men, each step being but the preparatiou for a new 
and greater one. 

§ 4. The law of the relative increase in the numbers of 
mankind, and in the supply of food and other commodities 
required for their support may now be found in the following 
propositions : 

Motion gives force, and the more rapid the motion the 
greater is the force obtained. 

With motion matter takes on itself new and higher forms, 
passing from the simple ones of the inorganic world and 
through those more complex of the vegetable world to the 
highly complicated forms of animal life, and ending in man. 

The more rapid the motion the greater is the tendency to 
changes of form, to increase of force, and to increase of the 
power at the command of man. 

The more simple the forms in which matter exists, the less 
is the power of resistance to gravitation, the greater the 
tendency to centralization, the less the motion, and the less 
the force. 

The more complex the form the greater becomes the power 
of resistance to gravitation, the greater the tendency to 
decentralization, the greater the motion, and the greater the 
force. 

With every increase of power on the one hand there is 
diminished resistance on the other. The more motion pro- 
duced the greater must, therefore, be the tendency to further 
increase of motion and of force. 

The most complex and highly organized form in which 
matter exists is that of man ; and here alone do we find the 
capacity for direction required for producing increase ot 
motion and of force. 

Wherever the greatest number of men exist we should 
therefore find the greatest tendency to the decentralization 
of matter, to increase of motion, to further changes of form, 
and to the higher development commencing in the vegetable 
world and ending in the increased production of men. 

With every increase in the extent to which matter has 
assumed the form of man, there should, consequently, be an 
increase of his power to control and direct the forces provided 
for his use; with constantly accelerated motion, and ct)n- 
stantly accelerated changes of form, and constant increase in 
liis power to command the food and clothing needed for his 
support. 



56 CHAPTER III. § 5. 

In +.lie inaietial world, motion among the atoms of matter 
is a consequence of physical heat. Greatest at the equator, 
it diminishes antii, as we approach the poles, we reach the 
region of centraiiztxtion and physical death. 

In the moral world it i5 a consequence of social heat ; and 
motion, as has been alrejidy shown, consists in " an exchange 
of relations" resulting hbni the existence of those differences 
that develop social life. It is greatest in those communities 
in which agriculture, matafactures, and commerce are happily 
combined, and in which, consequently, society has the highest 
organ i<zation. It diminishes as we approach the declining 
despotisms of the East, the regions of centralization and 
social death. It increases as we pass from the purely 
agricultural States of the South towards the. regions of more 
diversified industry in those of the iS'orth and East, and there, 
accordingly, do we find decentralization, life, and force. 

Centralization, slavery, and death, travel hand in hand 
together in both the material and. the moral world. 

§ 5. The view here presented difters totally from that com 
monly received, and known as the Malthusian law of popula- 
tion, which may thus be given : 

Population tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, while 
the supplies of food increase in an arithmetical one only. 
The former is, therefore, perpetually outstripping the latter, 
and hence arises the disease of over-population, with its ac- 
companiments, poverty, wretchedness and death ; a disease 
requiring for its remedy, wars, pestilences and famines on 
the one hand, or on the other, the exercise of that " moral 
restraint" which shall induce men and women to refrain from 
matrimony, and thus avoid the dangers resulting from addition 
to the numbers requiring to be fed. Reduced to distinct 
propositions, the theory is as follows : 

1. Matter tends to take upon itself higher forms, passinf> 
from the simple ones of inorganic life to those more beautiful 
of the vegetable and animal life, and finally terminating 
in man. 

2. This tendency exists in a slight degree in the lower 
forms of life, matter tending to take on itself the forms of 
potatoes and turnips, herrings and oysters, in an arithmetical 
ratio only. 

3. When, however, we reach the highest form of which 
matter is capable, we find the tendency to assume it existing 
in a geometrical ratio ; as a consequence of which, while man 



OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. Ol 

tends to increase as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, potatoes and turnips, 
herrings and oysters, increase only as 1, 2, 3, 4; causing tlio 
higliest form perpetually to outstrip the lower, and producing 
the disease of over-population. 

Were this asserted of any thing else than man, it would 
be deemed in the highest degree absurd ; and it would be 
asked, why a general law should here be set asidS. Every- 
where else, increase in number is in the inverse ratio of 
development. Thousands of billions of coral insects arc 
needed to build up islands for men and animals that count 
by thousands or by millions. Of the clio borealis, thousands 
furnish but one mouthful for the mighty whale. The progeny 
of a single pair of carp would in three years amount to 
thousands of billions ; that of a pair of rabbits would in 
twenty years count by millions; whereas that of a pair of 
elephants would not number dozens. When, however, we 
reach the highest form, we hear of a new law, in virtue of 
which man increases in a geometrical ratio, while increase 
of the commodities required for his use is limited to the 
arithmetical one. 

Endowed with faculties that can be developed solely by 
association with his kind, made in the image of liis Creator, 
and gifted with the power to distinguish right from wrong, 
man is thus required to choose between starvation on the one 
hand, or, on the other, abstinence from that association which 
lends, in accordance with the divine command, to promote 
increase of numbers. Such is the generally received doctrine 
of modern political economy, and, strange as it appears, no 
proposition has ever yet exercised more influence on tlie 
fortunes of the human race. That it should so have done 
has partly resulted from the fact that it has been propped up 
by another, in virtue of which man is supposed to have com- 
menced the work of cultivation on the rich soils which would 
give large returns to his labors, and to have been compelled, 
with the growth of population, to resort to poorer ones, with 
constant decline in the reward of his toil, — a theory that, if 
true, would establish the correctness of the Malthusian law 
of population. What are its claims to being received as 
true, will now be shown. 



58 CHAPTER IV. § 1. 

CHAPTER lY. 

OP THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 

* 

§ 1 Limited power of man, in the hunter and the shepherd state. Movements of th« 
isolated settler. Commences always with the poorer soils. With increase of numlierH, 
he acquires increase offeree, and is enabled to command the services of the riclier soils 
— thence obtaining largei supplies of food. Gradual jjassage from being the slave of 
nature, towards becoming nature's master. 

§ 2. Mr. Ricardo's theory. Based upon the assumption of a fact that never has existed. 
The law, as proved by observation, directly the reverse of the theory by him pro- 
pounded. 

§ 3. Course of settlement in the United States. 

■g 4. Course of settlement in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. 

I 5. Course of settlement in Great Britain. 

§ 6. Course of settlement in France, Belgium, and Holland. 

g 7. Course of settlement in the Scandinavian Peninsula, Russia, Germany, Italj', the 
islands of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Egypt. 

g 8. Course of settlement in India. Mr. Kicardo's theory that of depopulation and growing 
weakness ; whereas, the real law is that of growing association, and augmenting power. 

§ 1. Man has everywhere commenced his career as a 
hunter, subsisting on the spoils of the chase and dependant 
entirely on the voluntary contributions of the earth, having 
been thus Che slave of nature. In time, he is seen in the 
shepherd state, deriving food and clothing from the animals 
which he has subjected to his power. 

In neither of these states can there exist more than the 
very slightest power of association. In the first, eight hun- 
dred acres of land are required for producing no mbi'e food than 
half an acre can be made to do with proper cultivation. In 
the second, the land and the flocks being in common, any 
failure in the supply of food compels the whole tribe to 
migrate, lie who should refuse to do so running the risk of 
being butchered bv other roving tribes. In this stage of 
society man is thus not only the slave of nature, but also of 
his fellow-man. 

Absence of power in the minority to act independently, is, 
fts we here see, a necessary consequence of that inability to 
eommand the natural forces used in the producing of food 
which we see so plainly testified by the imperfection of 
savage Implements. Let the reader walk into the nearest 
tnuseuiTQ, and he will see with astonishment the rude nature 
;f the industrial machinery that, of necessity, was made to 
>;;tnce foi the wants ot long series of generations. 

i 01 the- purpose oi" Siudying the course of man in his efforts 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 59 

to subjugate the various natural forces, and thus to conipei 
them to contribute to the supply of his wants, let us now 
take a suppositious case. Let us imagine a settler and his 
descendants placed on an island, and then trace their opera- 
tions through any period of time, years or centuries ; and 
having thus ascertained what would be their course if undis- 
turbed, we sh.all be prepared to examine the causes which so 
generally have made their careers so widely different. 

The first cultivator, the Robinson Crusoe of his day, pro- 
vided, however, with a wife, has neither axe nor spade, lie 
works alone. Population being small, he can freel}^ select 
the land best suited to his purpose. The rich soils around 
are, however, covered with immense trees that he cannot fell, 
or they are swamps that he cannot drain ; and there being 
no free circulation of air, the impurity of the atmosphere 
threatens loss of health if not even of life ; while the luxuri- 
ant vegetation would again cover the patch he had cleared 
before he could reduce it to cultivation. He is forced, there- 
fore, to commence oti the poor soil of the hill slope, b.are of 
trees, and upon which water cannot stand. Here, drilling a 
few holes with a stick, he drops the grain which, in due 
season, yields him a return of twice his seed ; and pounding 
this between stones, he makes a sort of bread. While the 
earth thus labors for him, he has been trapping birds or rab- 
bits, and gathering fruits. His condition is thus improved. 

Sharpening a stone for a hatchet, he destroys the trees by 
the laborious operation of girdling; but, at length, finding 
a copper ore, he succeeds in burning it, and thus obtains 
a better axe Avith far less labor._ Fashioning a rude spade, 
too, he penetrates to a deeper and better soil ; and his seed, 
being better protected both from drought and frost, the pro- 
duce is thrice increased. He finds a soil which yields him 
tin, and this mixed with his copper gives him brass ; by aid 
of which he now proceeds more rapidly. While penetrating 
more deeply into the land first occupied, he is enabled to 
clear some portion of the richer soils around, undeterred by 
the fear that the shrubs exterminated may be almost at once 
replaced. His children, too, having grown, can now render 
him assistance, and he thus adds to the power already ob- 
tained over various natural forces, that which results from aaso- 
cialion and combinalion with his fellow-men. Next, burning 
a piece of the iron soil around, he olKains a real spade and 
axe, rude indeed, but much superior to those he had yet pos- 
sessed. Kemoving, with the help of his grown-up sons, thfi 



fiO CHAPTER IV. § 1. 

light pine of tlie steep hill-side, he thus extends his cultivable 
ground ; while his spade enables him to penetrate still further 
beneath the surface, and to mix the sand with the underlying 
clay, obtaining thus a more productive soil. The aid of his 
sons and grandsons now enables him to attempt operations 
which had been impracticable to himself alone ; and each of 
the largely increased family now obtains m'lch more food in 
return to far less severe exertion. 

Inci'eased power of association now brings with it divifiion 
of employment, one portion of the little community perform- 
ing the labors of the field, while another develops the sur- 
rounding mineral wealth. They invent a hoe, by means of 
which the children are enabled to keep the ground free from 
weeds. Extending their operations down towards the lower 
grounds, they burn the brush to let the air circulate, and 
now girdle the larger trees. Having tamed the ox, they 
next invent a rude plough, and attaching him to it with a 
piece of twisted hide, they find themselves enabled to improve 
and extend their cultivation. The community growls, and 
with it w^ealth that exhibits itself in the forms of improved 
machinery and larger supplies of food and clothing. The 
dwelling, too, is better. At first it was but a hole in the 
ground ; subsequently it was composed of such decayed logs 
as the first settler could succeed in placing one upon the 
other. Windows and chimneys being unknown, he had been 
forced to live in smoke, if he would not perish of cold ; and 
if the severity of the weather obliged him to close his door, 
he was not only stifled, but passed his days in utter darkness 
His time, during a large portion of the year, was thus made 
unproductive, while his life was liable to be shortened by 
reason of foul air within, or severe cold without, his miserable 
hut. Now, however, the increase of population and wealth, 
resulting from the cultivation of better soils, and from his 
increased mastery of the great natural forces having increased 
the power of association, they are enabled to fell the heavy 
oak and pine, and construct better and more healthy dwell- 
ings. Employment becoming more diversified, and indi- 
viduality become more and more developed, a part of the 
increasing population is now employed in the field, while 
another prepares the skins for clothing, and a third fashions 
implements with which to aid the others in their labors. 
The supply of food increases, and now, relieved from all fear 
of famine, they find a surplus to be stored away as provision 
against failure of future crops. 



OF THE UCCLPATIUN OF THE EARTH. 61 

As cultivation oxti'iids downw.Trd towards tlic richer soils 
of the river bottom, the coiniiiuiiity arc now enabled to en- 
gage in the work of drainage, and thus to obtain more copious 
liiirvests. Enclosing a meadow for the use of the oxen, tliey 
now obtain with diminished labor, larger supplies of meat, 
milk, butter, and hides. To the flesh of the hog, which lived 
on mast, they now add beef, and perhaps mutton, the lancLs 
first cultivated being abandoned to the sheep. 

Numerous generations having 7iow passed awa}', the 
younger ones, profiting by the wealth already accumulated, 
apply their labor with constanth' increasing advantage, ob- 
taining as constantly increasing returns to less severe exer- 
tion. Calling new powers to their aid, the water, and even 
the air, is made to work, windmills grinding the grain, and 
sawmills cutting the timber. The little furnace now appears, 
charcoal being applied to the reduction of iron ore, and the 
labor of a single day becomes more productive than that of 
many weeks had been before. Population spreads along the 
hill side and down the slope, becoming more and more dense 
at the seat of the original settlement ; and with every step 
we find increasing tendency to combination of action for the 
production of food, the manufacture of clothing, the con-, 
struction of houses, and tlie preparation of machinery for 
aiding in all such operations. Marshes are drained, and 
roads are made between the old settlement and the newer 
ones that have sprung up around it, thus facilitating ex- 
changes of corn or wool for improved spades or ploughs, for 
cloths or blankets. 

As population increases, with still further development of 
wealth and power, leisure is accpnred for reflection on th(3 
experience of themselves and their predecessors, and mind 
becomes more and more stimulated to action. All being 
better fed, clothed, and housed, all are incited to new exer- 
tions, while with the power of working iu or out of doors, 
according to the season, they can apply their labor with 
greater steadiness. Thus far, they have found it difficult to 
gather their crops in season. Harvest time being short, the 
whole strength of the community has been insufficient to pre- 
vent much of the grain from perishing on the ground. Lalior 
has been superabundant during the rest of the year, while 
the harvest produced a demand that could not be supplied. 
The reaping-hook and the scythe now, however, take the 
place of the hand, and the cradle and horse-rake follow, all 
tending to facilitate accumulation, and increase the power 



62 CHAPTER IV. § 1. 

of applying labor to new soils which require embankment as 
well as drainage. The clay is found to be underlaid with 
lime, which latter needs to be decomposed, a work that is 
much facilitated by the road, the horse, and the wagon, which 
enable the former to procure supplies of the carbon-yielding 
soil, called coal. Burning the lime and mixing it with clay, 
he now obtains a soil yielding larger crops with constant 
diminution in the severity of exertion. Population and wealth 
farther increasing, the steam-engine assists the work of drain- 
age, while the roailroad facilitates transportation of the pro- 
duce to its market. The cattle being now fattened at home, 
a large portion of the produce of the rich meadow is converted 
into manure to be applied to the poorer soils, and he obtains 
from the market their refuse in the form of bones to be ap- 
plied to maintaining the powers of his land. Passing thus, 
at every step, from the poorer to the better soils, the rapidly 
increasing population obtain from the same surface a con- 
stantly increasing supply of the necessaries of life, with con- 
stant increase of power to live in connection with each other. 
The desire for association grows with the power to satisfy it. 
labor becomes more productive, and the facilities for com- 
merce increase, with constant tendency toward harmony, 
peace, and security at home and abroad, and constant increase 
of numbers, prosperity, wealth and happiness. 

Such has been the history of man wherever wealth and 
population have been permitted to increase. Everywhere he 
is seen to have commenced poor and helpless, and conse- 
quently the slave of nature. Everywhere, as numbers have 
increased, he is seen to have become, from year to year, and 
from century to century, more and more her master, every 
step in that direction being marked by rapid development of 
individuality, increased power of association, increased sense 
of responsibility, and increased power of progress. 

That such has been the case with all nations, and in all 
parts of the earth, is so obvious that it would seem almost 
unnecessary to offer any proof of the fact, nor could it be so 
but that it has been asserted that the course of things had 
been directly the reverse — that man had always commenced 
the work of cultivation on the rich soils of the earth, and 
•^hat then food had been abundant — but that, as population 
has increased, his successors had found themselves forced to 
resort to inferior ones, yielding steadily less and less in return 
to labor ; with constant tendency to over-population, poverty, 
wretchedness, and death. Were this really so, there could 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. (53 

be no sucli thing as universality in the natural laws to which 
uian is subjected, for in regard to all other descriptions of 
matter, we see him uniformly commencing with the inferior, 
and passing, as wealth and population grow, to the superior, 
with constantly increasing return to labor. He is seen to 
liuve commenced with the axe of stone, and to have passed 
tlirough those of copper, bronze, and iron, until he has finally 
arrived at those of steel ; to have passed from the spindle 
and distaff to the spinning-jenny and the power-loom ; from 
the canoe to the ship ; from transportation on the backs of 
men to that in railroad cars ; from rude hieroglyphics painted 
un skins to the printed book ; and from the wild society of 
the savage tribe where might makes right, to the organized 
community in which the rights of those who are weak in 
numbers, or in mu.^cular power, are respected. Having 
studied these facts, and having satisfled ourselves that such 
had been his course in reference to all things other than the 
land required for cultivation, we should be disposed to believe 
that it must there also prove to have been the case, and that 
the theory referred to, that of Mr. Ricardo — by virtue of 
which man is rendered more and more the slave of nature as 
wealth and population grow — must be untrue. 

§ 2. Nearly half a century since Mr. Ricardo published 
his theory of the nature and causes of rent;* and during 

* The theory is thus stated by its author : — ■ 

On the first settling of a country in which there is an abundance 
of rich and fertile land, a very small portion of which is required 
to be cultivated for the support of the actual population, or indeed 
can be cultivated with the capital which the population can com- 
mand, there will be no rent ; for no one would pay for the use of 
land when there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriatfd, 
and therefore at the disposal of whomsoever might choose to culti- 
vate it If all land had the same properties, if it were 

boundless in quantity and uniform in quality, no charge could be 
nia<le for its use, unless where it possessed peculiar advantages of 
(ituatiou. It is only, then, because land is not unlimited in quan- 
>ity and uniform in quality, and because, in the progress of popula- 
tion, land of an inferior quality or less advantageously situated is 
called into cultivation, tliat rent is ever paid for tiie use of it. 
When, in the progress of society, land of tlie second degree of fer- 
tility is taken into cultivation rent immediately commences on 
that of the first quality ; and the amount of rent will depend on 

the difference in the quality of these two portions of land 

Wiien land of the third quality is taken into cultivation, rent im- 
mediately commences on the second ; and it is regulated, as before, 
by the <liliereuce in their productive powers. At the same time, 



G4 CHAPTER IV. § 2. 

nearly all that time it has been received by most of tb> 
economists of Europe and America, as being so unquestion- 
able, that doubt of its truth could proceed only from incapacity 
for its comprehension. Attributing the poverty existing in 
the world to a law emanating from an all-wise and all-benefi- 
cent Creator, it relieved the governing classes from all 
responsibility for the wretchedness by which they were sur- 
rounded, and was therefore at once adopted. Since then it 
has been the doctrine of a large portion of the schools of this 
country and of Europe, although no two of its teachers have 
ever yet quite agreed as to what it was that their master had 
meant to teach. The student, finding an almost universal 
disagreement amongst them, turns in despair to Mr. Ricardo 
himself; but only to discover in his celebrated chapter on 
rent, such contradictions and complications as were scarcely 
ever before found in the same number of lines, and such as 
leave him at no loss to account for the variety of doctrines 
taught by his disciples. 

Looking around, he sees that all the recognized laws of 
nature are characterized by the most perfect simplicity, and 
the greatest breadth of application. The simplicity of Kep- 
ler's law of " equal areas in equal times" is perfect. Its 
truth, consequently, is universal ; and all to whom it is ex- 
plained feel not only that it is true, but that it must continue 
to be so in relation to all the planets that hereafter may be 
discovered. A child may understand it ; it needs neither 
commentary nor modification, therein differing greatly from 
that which is under consideration, and which cannot certainly 
be charged with either simplicity or universality. 

At first sight, however, it seems very simple. P^ent is said 
to be paid for land of the first quality, yielding a hundred 
quarters in return to a given quantity of labor, when the 
increase of population renders it necessary to cultivate land 
of the second quality, yielding but ninety quarters in return 

the rent of the first quality will rise, for that must always be above 
the rent of the second, by the difference of the produce which they 
yield with a given quantity of capital and labor. 

The most fertile and most favorably situated land will be first 
cultivated, and the exchangeable value of its produce will be 
adjusted in the same manner as the exchangeable value of all other 
commodities, by the total quantity of labor necessary in various 
forms from first to last, to produce it and bring it to market. 
When land of inferior quality is takeji into cultivation, the ex- 
changeable value of raw produce will rise, because more labor ia 
required to produce it. — Ricardo''s Political Economij, chap. ii. 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 05 

to the same amount oi eflfurt ; ami the sum of the rent tlicii 
paid foi number one is equal to the difference between their 
respective products. Every man who hears this proposition, 
sees around him land that pays I'ent, and sees, too, that that 
which yields forty bushels to the acre pays more than that 
which yields but thirty, the difference being nearly equal to 
the difference of product. He becomes at once a disciple of 
Mr. Ricardo, admitting that prices are paid for the use of 
land because, soils differ in their qualities ; when he would 
regard it as absurd to assert that prices are paid for oxen 
because one ox is heavier than another, or that rents are paid 
for houses because some will accommodate twenty persons, 
and others only ten or twelve. 

The whole system is based upon the assumed fact, that in 
the beginning of cultivation, when population is small anrl 
land abundant, the richest soils alone are cultivated. This 
fact exists, or it does not. If it has no existence, the system 
falls to the ground. That it has none, and never had, it is 
now proposed to show. 

The picture drawn by Mr. Ricardo differs totally from that 
we have above presented for the reader's consideration. The 
former, placing the settler on the most fertile lands, requires 
that his children and children's children in succession, should 
find themselves driven, by sad necessity, to occupy the poorer 
soils ; thus becoming, from generation to generation, more 
and more the slaves of nature. The latter, placing the early 
settler on the poorer soils, exhibits his successors exercising 
Constantly increasing power to pass to the cultivation of the 
richer soils ; thus becoming, from generation to generation, 
more the masters of nature, compelling her to do their work, 
and pressing onward from triumpii to trium})h, with constant 
increase in the power of association, in the development of 
individuality, in the feeling of responsibility, and in the power 
of further progress. Which of these pictures is the true one, 
is to be settled by the determination of the fact, what it is 
that men in times past have done, and what it is they are 
now doing, in regard to the occupation of the earth. If it 
can be shown that, in every country and at every age, the 
order of events has been in direct opposition to what it is 
supposed by Mr. Ricardo to have been, then must his theory 
be abandoned as wholly destitute of foundation. That it has 
been so will now be shown by a brief examination of facts 
presented by the history of the world, commencing with 
these United States. Their settlement having been recent, 



66 CHAPTER IV. § 3. 

and being, indeed, still in progress, the settler's course can 
be traced more readily than would be possible in any of the 
older countries of Europe. 

§ 3. The first settlers of English race established themselves 
on the barren soil of Massachusetts, founding the colony o^ 
Plymouth. The continent was before them, but they had to 
tal<e what, with their small means, they could obtain. Other 
settlements were formed at Newport and New Haven, and 
thence they may be traced, following the course of the rivers, 
but taking in all cases. the higher lands and leaving the clear- 
ing of timber and the draining of swamps to their successors. 
The richest soils of New England remain even yet uncul- 
tivated, while of tholse in cultivation the most productive are 
those reclaimed within the last half century. 

In New York the process has been the same. The unpro- 
ductive soil of Manhattan Island, and the higher lands of the 
opposite shore, claimed early attention while richer and lower 
lands, close at hand, remain even yet uncultivated. We 
trace the population along the Hudson to the Valley of the 
Mohawk, where they established themselves near the head 
of the stream on lands requiring but little of either clearing 
or drainage. Geneva, and other towns and villages now seen 
in the rich western lands of the State, scarcely existed sixty 
years since ; while the high lands bordering on Pennsylvania 
were early settled — those on Coshocton Creek having been 
described as very valuable because of " their total exemption 
from all periodical disorders, particularly fever and ague." 

In New Jersey we see the Quakers occupying the high 
lands towards the heads of rivers, or selecting along the 
Delaware the light soils that bear the pine, while avoiding 
the heavier ones on the opposite shore of Pennsylvania, and 
neglecting altogether rich lands that still remain covered with 
the finest timber. Passing through sandy districts of the 
State we find hundred of little clearings long since aban- 
doned, attesting the character of the land that men cultivate 
when population is small, and land is most abundant. 

On the sandy soil of Delaware, the Swedes settled Lewis- 
town and Christiana; and in the now decaying little towns 
of Elkton and Charlestown, near the head of the Chesapeake 
Bay, we find evidence of the poverty of the soils first occu- 
pied, when fine meadow lands, now the richest farms in the 
State, were wholly worthless. 

Penn follows the Swedes, first selecting the high lands on 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. C,*l 

Inc Delawiire, about twelve miles north of the site of hi." 
future city, but afterwards taking the toniijue of land near 
tne confluence of that river and the Schuylkill. Thence we 
find population extending northwest along the ridge running 
north and between the river, where miles of early settlements 
still remain. On the maps of a somewhat later period, the 
fertile lands near the river, almost to the head of tide water, 
are shown as held in large tracts and yet imcleared, while 
the higher ones are divided into numerous little farms. 
Further on, cultivation almost leaves the river bank, but at a 
distance from it we find farms that have now been cultivated 
for more than a hundred years. The old road, made to suit 
the early settlers, is seen winding about, as if in search of 
hills to cross ; while the new roads keep near the stream, on 
the low lands which have but recently been subjected to 
(.•ultivation. Crossing the mountains, we see, near their tops, 
the habitations of early settlers, who selected the land of the 
pine, whose knots afforded a substitute for candles they wee 
too poor to purchase. Beyond, we find in the valley of tlie 
!Sus(piehanna, meadow lands, still uncleared, and covered 
with heavy limber. Everywhere, we find cultivation to have 
commenced on the hill sides, and gradualism to have descended, 
the valleys becoming more cleared of timber, and meadows 
and cattle aj)pearing, the most certain signs of increasing 
wealth and population. Passing west, at the foot of the 
JNIuncy hills, we find fine limestone land whose food-pro- 
ducing qualities not being obvious to the early settlers, whole 
tracts of it were exchanged for a jug of whiskey, or a dollar. 
Taking a bird's eye view of the country, we trace the course 
of every little stream by the timber standing on its banks, 
conspicuous among the cleared, but elevated, lands that are 
everywhere around. Crossing the ridge of the Alleghany 
to the head-waters of the Ohio, we see a scattered population 
occupying the higher lands ; but as we descend the river the 
lower ones become cleared, until at length we find ourselves 
at Pittsburg, in the midst of a dense population actively 
employed in bringing into connection the coal, the lime- 
slone,\and the iron ore, with a view to preparation of the 
machinery required for enabling the farmer to plough more 
deeply, and to drain the fertile lands of the river bottoms. 

The early settlers of the West uniformly selected the higher 
lands, avoiding the valleys of streams on accoimt of the fevers 
which even now sweep olf so many emigrants. Seeking :i 
dry place for his dwelling, the settler always .selected tho 



68 CHAPTER IV. § 3. 

ridges, wliicli afforded also a facility for getting speedily some 
small crop, the same reason which prevented him from at- 
tempting artificial drainage in reference to his house, operat- 
ing with equal force in regai-d to the land required for 
cultivation. 

In Wisconsin, the traveler finds the first white settler 
placed on the highest land, known by the title of " The Blue 
Mound ;" and he follows the early roads along the ridges 
upon which are found the villages of the primitive settlei's, 
occasionally crossing a " wet prairie," the richest land of the 
State, and always the terror of the early emigrant. 

Arrived at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
we find only the poor wood-cutter, who risks his health while 
providing wood for the numerous steamers which pass the 
place. For hundreds of miles we pass through fertile land 
clothed with the heaviest timber, that is yet of no value for 
cultivation, because the air around is filled with gases that 
are destructive of both life and health. 

Descending further, we meet population and wealth ascend- 
ing the Mississippi, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Embankments, or levees, keep out the river, and the finest 
plantations are seen on land corresponding with the unculti- 
vated region left behind, while to seek the habitations of the 
early settlers we must leave the river bank and ascend the 
hills. If, instead of descending the Mississippi, we ascend 
the Missouri, the Kentucky, the Tennessee, or the Red River, 
we find, invariably, that the more dense the population, and 
the greater the mass of wealth, the more are the rich soils 
cultivated; that as population diminishes with our approach 
to these head-waters, and land becomes more abundant, cul- 
tivation recedes from the river bank, and the undrained 
meadow and timber lands become more abundant — the scat- 
tered inhabitants obtaining from the superficial soils a scanty 
return to labor, with little power to command the necessaries 
and comforts- of life. 

In Texas, we see the town of Austin, the seat of the first 
American settlement, to have been placed high up on the 
Colorado, while millions of acres of the finest lands were 
passed over as incapable of paying the cost of simple appro- 
priation. In the Spanish colony of Bexar, we see further 
illustration of the same universal fact, that colonization tends 
always toward the head-waters of the rivers. 

So, too, in the Southern Atlantic States.' The richest 
/ands of North Carolina still remain undrained, while men 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EAUTfl. G9 

n'aste labor on tliose wliicli yield but three to five bushels of 
wheat per acre. South Carolina, Georg-ia, Alabama, and 
Florida, have niilliuns of acres of the finest lands unoccupii'd 
and waiting: the growth of population to yield immeuso 
returns to labor. 

The facts are everj'where the same : for the same reason 
, that the settler builds himself a log-house, to provide shelter 
till he can have one of stone, he begins cultivation where he 
can raise some small crop. Wherever settlements have been 
attempted on rich lands they have either failed, or their pro- 
gress has been very slovs'^ indeed. We see this in the repeated 
failures of the French colonies of Louisiana and Cayenne, 
compared with the steady growth of those formed in the 
region of the St. Lawrence ; and in the slow progress of the 
colonies planted on the rich lands of Virginia and Carolina, as 
compared with that of those begun on the sterile New Eng- 
land soils. The former can not compensate men working 
for themselves, and hence it is that we find the richer colonists 
purchasing negroes and compelling them to perform the 
work, while the free laborer seeks the light sandy lands of 
North Carolina. No man, left to himself, will begin the work 
of cultivation on the rich soils, because it is from them that 
the return is then the least ; and it is upon them that the 
condition of the laborer is worst, when the work is under- 
taken in advance of the habit of association that comes with 
the growth of wealth and population. The settler on the 
high lands obtained, at least, food ; had he atteiupted to drain 
the rich soils of the Dismal Swamp he would have starved, 
as did the men who sought to occupy the fertile island of 
Roanoke. 

§ 4. Crossing the Rio Grande, into Mexico, the reader 
will find further illustration of the universality of this law of 
occupation. Near the mouth of the river, but at some dis- 
tance from its bank, is Matamoras, a city of recent date. 
Following the river through ricli lands in a state of nature, 
he reaches the mouth of the San Juan, ascending which ho 
finds himself in a rather populous country, with Monterey 
fur its capital. Northward, on the high land of Chihuahua, 
he sees cultivation keejjing way from the river banks ; while 
westward from Monterey, through Saltillo, his road lies 
over sandy plains, which yet are occupied. Arriving in 
Potosi, he finds himself in a country without rivers, in which 
failure of the periodical rains is followed by famine and 



70 CHAPTER IV. § 4. 

death ; yet downwards towards the coast, he sees a magnifi 
cent country, watered by numerous rivers, in which cotton 
and indigo grow spontaneously, and which could supply the 
world with sugar ; but there he sees no sign of population. 
The land is uncleared, for those who should undertake the 
work, with the present means of the country, would either 
starve, or perish by reason of the fevers that there so much 
prevail. 

Passing on, he sees Zacatecas, high and dry like Potosi, 
yet cultivated. Tlascala, once the seat of a wealthy people, 
occupies the high lands whence descend little streams flow- 
ing to both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. The valley 
of Mexico, in the time of Cortez, supported forty cities ; but 
population has declined, and the remaining pejple have re- 
tired to the high lands around to cultivate the poorer soils 
from which the single city that yet remains derives its sup- 
plies of food. Fertile land ivS superabundant, but the people 
fly from it, whereas, according to Mr. Ricardo, it should be 
the first appropriated. 

Passing southward, the fertile lands of Tabasco are seen 
almost unoccupied ; but in Yucatan, a region in which water 
is a luxury, we find a prosperous population, near neighbors 
to the better soils of Honduras, still a wilderness, affording 
subsistence to but a few miserable logwood and mahogany 
cutters. 

In the Caribbean Sea we find the little rocky islands of 
Monserrat, Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and others, culti- 
vated throughout, while the rich soil of Trinidad remains 
almost in a state of nature, and the fertile Porto Rico is but 
now beginning to be subjected to cultivation. 

Looking now southward, we see, in Costa Rica, and in 
Nicaragua, lands of incomparable fertility totally unoccupied, 
while Indian villages abound on the mountain slopes. 

Farther south, are seen the cities of Santa Fe de Bogota 
and Quito, centres of population, where men cluster together 
on high and diy lands while the valley of the Orinoco re- 
mains unoccupied ; the same facts being here exhibited 
which, on a smaller scale,4iave been shown to exist in Penn- 
sylvania. The only civilized people of the days of Pizarro, 
occupied Peru, the rapid course of whose little streams pre- 
vented the formation of marshes where decaying vegetable 
matter might give richness to the soil. 

On the east is Brazil, watered by the largest rivers in the 
rt'orld, and capable of yielding in untold abundance all the 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 71 

products of the tropics, and with the precious metals lying 
near the surface, but yet a wilderness. Having; no elevated 
table lands, it affords no eligible site for European colonists. 
Ou the steep slope of Cliili, we find a people advancing? in 
population and wealth, while the fertile valley of the La Plata 
i-s plunged in barbarism. 

§ 5. Crossing the ocean, and landing in the south of 
England, the traveler finds himself in a country where the 
streams are short and the valleys limited ; and, consequently, 
fitted for early cultivation. There, Ctesar found the only 
people of the island who had made any progress in the art 
of tillage, the more inland tribes living on the spoils of the 
chase, or on the milk yielded by their flocks. In the barren 
Cornwall he sees marks of cultivation of great and unknown 
antiquity ; and in a part thereof now seldom visited, are found 
the ruins of Tintagel, the castle in which King Arthur held 
his court. He finds the seats of early cultivation in the sites 
of rotten boroughs, or in those parts of the kingdom where 
men who can neither read nor write still live in mud-built 
cottages, and receive but six or eight shillings for a week of 
labor. He sees the palace of the Norman kings at Win- 
chester, and not in the valley of the Thames ; while in South 
Lancashire, with its rich fields of waving grain, he finds the 
country whose morasses had nearly swallowed up the army 
of the conquering Norman on his return from devastating 
the North, and which daunted the antiquary, Camden, so late 
as the age of James I. Asking for the lands most recently 
reduced to cultivation he will be shown the feus of Lincoln 
and Cambridgeshire, now yielding the best crops of England, 
but which were valueless until the steam-engine had been 
brought to aid the labors of the agriculturist. 

To find the seats of the earliest cultivation in Scotland, he 
must visit remote districts, now abandoned to a few black 
cattle ; while the newest soils are found in the Lothians, or 
on the banks of the Tweed, but recently inhabited by bar- 
barians whose chief pleasure was found in plundering ex- 
peditions into England — the forests and swamps of the 
divys of Mary and Elizabeth, presenting the finest farms of 
Scotland. We find the poorest people in the Western Isles, 
or in the Orkneys, once deemed so valuable as to be received 
•by the King of Norway in pledge for the payment of a sum 
of money far greater than would now purchase the fee simple 
of the land. 



•72 CHAPTER IV. § 6. 

§ 6. In France, in the days of Caesar, we see the most power- 
ful tribes seated on the flanks of the Alps, and the centres of 
trade in the rich cities of Bibracte, Vienne, and Noviodunum 
while the now fertile Belgica presented but a single place of 
note, and that at the passage of the Somme, where now 
stands Amiens. Amongst the Alps themselves, the Helvetii 
had a dozen cities and near four hundred villages. Seeking 
the cities of the days of Philip Augustus, Chalons, St. Quen- 
tin, Soissons, Rheims, Troyes, Nancy, Orleans, Bourges, 
Dijon, Yienne, Nismes, Toulouse, or Cahors, the last once 
the centre of the banking operations of France, we find them 
far towards the heads of the streams on which they stand, or 
on the high ground between the rivers. The centres of 
power at a later period are found in the wild Brittany, where 
wolves even yet abound ; in Dijon, on the flank of the Alps : 
in Auvergne, but recently "a secret and safe asylum of 
crime ;" in the Limousin, which gave to the Church so many 
popes that the Limousin cardinals almost dictated the pro- 
ceedings of the Conclave ; or on the slopes of the Cevennes, 
where literature and art flourished when the richer soils, vast 
tracts of which even yet remain undrained, were wholly 
waste. 

In Belgium we find the poor Luxemburg and Limburg to 
iiave been cultivated from a remote period, while the fertile 
Flanders remained until the seventh century an impenetrable' 
desert. Even till the thirteenth century, the forest of Soignies 
covered the site of Brussels, and the fertile Brabant was almost 
uncultivated; while in the now almost abandoned Gampine of 
Aiitwerp were found the ancient cities of Gheel and Heeren^ 
thai, and the castle of Westerloo, one of the oldest in Belgium, 
whose ditches even yet supply their visitors with implements 
of war dating back to the days of the Romans. In the time 
of CiBsar, Maastricht was only known as the place of passage 
of the Maes, as the Broecksel of a later period, now Brussels, 
was but the passage of the Senne. 

In Holland, we see a miserable people, living on islands 
of sand and subsisting chiefly on fish, whose poverty exempted 
them from the grinding taxation of R.ome. Slowly they in- 
creased in numbers and in wealth. Chief among the provinces 
was the narrow and barren Hauptland, which gave its 
name to the entire region. Unable to obtain food by means 
of agriculture, the Dutch sought it in the direction of manu- 
factures and trade ; but with the growth of population 
and wealth came the clearing ol woods and drainin<>; of 



OF THE OCCUrATION OF THE EARTH. 73 

marshes, and we see them then becoming the richest natiou 
of Europe. 

§ 7. Further north, we find a people whose ancestors, pass- 
ing from the neighborhood of the Don through the rich plains 
of Northern Germany, selected the barren mountains of Scan- 
dinavia as the land best suited to their then condition. 
Everywhere tliroughout this country the marks of early 
cultivation are found on high and poor lands long since 
abandoned. To such an extent is this the case, that it has 
afforded countenance to the belief that this must have been 
the seat of the great " Northern Hive" by which Southern 
Europe was supposed to have been overrun. The facts, 
however, are only a repetition of those described in regard to 
North and South America, England, Scotland, France, and 
Belgium, and which recur again in Russia, where, as an 
English traveler says, " we see the poorest soil selected for 
cultivation, while the richest remains neglected in its close 
vicinity." 

Germany, in the country watered by the Danube and its 
tributaries, exhibits a population abounding at the heads of 
streams, but diminishing as we descend that great river, until 
reaching the richest lands we find them to be entirely unoc- 
cupied. In Hungary, "the Puzta," the cradle of Hungarian 
nationality, presents to view a wide plain consisting of wave- 
like sand hills ; while beyond the Theiss rich lands abound, 
destitute of human life. 

In Italy, a numerous population occupied the highlands of 
Cisalpine Gaul, when the rich soils of Yenetia were yet 
unoccupied. Southward, along the flanks of the Appenines, 
we find a gradually increasing population, and towns whose 
age may almost be inferred from their situation. The 
Samnite hills were peopled, Etruria occupied, and Yeii and 
Alba built, before Romulus gathered together his adventurers 
on the banks of the Tiber. 

In Greece, we meet the same universal fact. On the hills 
of Arcadia were settlements which long preceded those of 
the lands of Elis watered by the Alpheus ; and the meagre 
soil of Attica was early occupied, while the fat Boeotia fol- 
lowed slowly in the rear. On the hill-tops, in various 
quarters, the sites of deserted cities presented, in the histor- 
ical times of Greece, evidences of long previous occupation. 
On the short slope of eastern Argolis, early abandoned, are 
found the ruins of the palace of Agamemnon ; and north of 



74 CHAPTER IV. § 8. 

the Gulf of Corinth, we see the Phocians, Locrians, and 
-^tolians clustei'ed on the high and poor lands, while the 
rich plains of Thessalj and Thrace were destitute of popu- 
lation. 

The mountainous Crete, likewise, was occupied from a 
period when the Delta of the Nile was a wilderness. As- 
cending that river, cultivation becomes at each step more 
ancient, until we reach Thebes, the first great city of Egypt. 
With the growth of population and wealth, Memphis became 
the capital, the Delta not being reclaimed until a still later 
period. 

Along the north of Africa, the most civilized portion of 
the people are seen clustering on the slopes of Mount Atlas ; 
and farther south, the capital of Abyssinia is found at an 
elevation of eight thousand feet above the sea, while lands of 
the greatest fertility remain entirely uncultivated. 

§ 8. In the Pacific Ocean we find innumerable islands 
whose lower lands are unoccupied, their richness rendering 
them fatal to life ; while population clusters round the hills. 
The valleys of Australia are inhabited by tribes the lowest 
of the human race ; while on the little high-pointed islands 
around are found a superior race, with houses, cultivation 
and manufactures. In the dominions of the king of Candy, 
in Ceylon, the people show the same aversion to the low and 
rich lands as is felt by those of Mexico and Java. Entering 
India by Cape Comorin, and following the range of high 
lands, we find the cities of Seringapatam, Poonah, and Ah- 
medmugger, while below, near the coast, are the recent 
European cities of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. The 
Indus rolls its course through hundreds of miles almost with- 
out a settlement on its banks; while on the higher country, 
right and left, exists a numerous population. The rich Delta 
of the Ganges is unoccupied, but far towards the head of 
the river we meet Delhi, the capital of India while the 
government yet remained in the hands of native sovereigns. 
Here, as everywhere, man avoids the rich soils that need 
drainage, and raises his food on the higher lairds which drain 
themselves ; and here, as always when the superficial soil 
alone is cultivated, the return to labor is small ; and hence 
it is that we find the Hindoo working for a rupee or two per 
month, sufBcient only to give him a handful of rice per day, 
and to i:)urchase a rag of cotton cloth with which to shield 
his nakedness. The most fertile soils exist in unlimited 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EAUTH. 75 

quantity close to that wliioh the laborer scratches with a 
btick for want of a spade, jfatherinir his harvest with his 
liaiids for want of a reaping-hook, and carrying home on his 
shoulders the miseral)Ie crop for want of a horse and cart. 

Passing northward, by Caboul and Aftghanistan, leaving 
to the left Persia, wdiose dry and barren soil has been fur 
ages cultivated, we find even amongst the Himalayas, the 
villages placed on slopes which yield but scanty crops of 
millet, maize, and buckwheat. Here we have the cradle of 
the human race, and may trace hence the course of successive 
tribes passing toward more productive soils ; sometimes 
stopping to cultivate such hilly lands as can be made to yield 
a small supply of food ; then crossing the sea to place tliem- 
selves on little peaked islands like those of the ^Egean, so early 
cultivated. Some of these tril)es reach the Mediterranean, 
where civilization is first found, and soonest lost under suc- 
ceeding waves of emigration : others, passing farther west, 
enter Italy, France, and Spain, while still others reach the 
British Isles. After a few centuries of rest, we find them 
crossing the Atlantic, and ascending the slope of the Alle- 
ghany, preparatory to the ascent and passage of the great 
range which divides the waters of the Pacific from those of 
the Atlantic. In all cases we see the pioneers seizing on the 
clear dry land of the steep hill-side, thence, as population 
increases, descending towards the rich lands of the river 
bottom, or penetrating to the lower soils, combining the 
upper clay or sand with the lower marl or lime, and thus 
compounding a soil capable of yielding large returns to labor. 
Everywhere, with increased power of union, man exercises 
increased power over land. Everywhere, as new soils are 
brought into activity, we find more rapid increa.sc of popula- 
tion, producing increased tendency to combination of exertion, 
by the liel[) of which the powers of men are often fifty-fold 
increa.sed, en^ling them to provide better for their immediate 
wants, while accumulating the machinery needed for bringing 
to light the vast treasures of nature. Everywhere, we find 
that with increasing population the supply of food becomes 
more abundant and regular, clothing and shelter are obtained 
with greater ease, famine and pestilence tend to pass away, 
health becomes more general, life more prolonged, and luan 
more happy and more free. 

In regard to all human wants, except the single one of 
food, such is admitted to be the case. It is seen that with 
the growth of population and wealth men obtain water, iron, 



76 CHAPTER IV. § 8. 

coal, and clothing, and the use of houses, ships, and roads in 
return for diminished labor. It is not doubted that the 
gigantic works by means of which rivers are carried through 
our cities enable men to obtain water at smaller cost than 
when each man took a bucket and helped himself on the 
river bank. It is seen that the shaft which it took years to 
sink, supplies fuel at far less cost of labor than was required 
when the settler cai-ried home scraps of half-decomposed 
timber, for want of an axe with which to cut the already 
fallen log ; that the grist mill does the work of thousands of 
human arms ; and that the gigantic factory supplies cloth 
more cheaply than the little loom : — but it is denied that 
such is the case in reference to the supply of food. In 
regard to every thing else, man begins with the worst 
machinery, and proceeds upward to the best ; but in regard 
to land, and that alone, he begins, according to Mr. Ricardo, 
with the best and proceeds downward towards the worst ; 
and with every stage of his progress finds a decreasing return 
to labor, threatening starvation, and admonishing him against 
raising children to aid him in his age, lest they should, like 
the people of India, or of the Pacific Isles, bury him alive or 
expose him on the river bank, that they may divide among 
themselves his modicum of food. 

How far this is so the reader will now determine for him- 
self. All the other laws of nature are universally true ; and 
he may now agree with, us that there is but one law for 
food, light, clothing, and fuel — that man, in all cases, com- 
mences with poor machinery and proceeds onward to the 
better, being thus enabled with the growth of wealth, popu- 
lation, and the power of association, to obtain with constantly 
diminishing labor an increased supply of all the necessaries, 
conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life. 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF TOE EARTH. 77 

CHAPTER y. 

OP THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH — CONTINUED. 

{ I T»wrense of numbers compels the abandonment of the richer soils, and drives nnn 

lj:uk to tlie poorer ones. Causes of the <lecliue of population. The supply of foiKl rtini- 

l.iishes in a ratio greater than that of man. 
5 'Z. Keal f;ictfl directly the reverse of those supposed by Mr. Ricardo. Progre.ss of depopu- 

l.iti.m iu Asi;», Africa, and various parts of Europe. 
J 3. Kxhausti.m of the soil, and i)rop:res3 of dejiopulation in the United States. With 

ev(;ry step iu that diiection man loses value, and nature acquu-es power at his expense. 

§ 1. Population and wealth tend to increase, and cultiva- 
tion tends toward the more fertile soils, when man is allowed 
to ol)ey those instincts which pi'ompt him to seek association 
with his fellow-man ; while as combination declines, the ftu'tile 
soils are everywhere abandoned. 

When men are poor, they must select such soils as they 
can, not such as they would, cultivate. Though settled on 
the same mountain rano:e, the absence of roads prevents them 
from associating tor self-defence. The little trilje embraces 
some who would prefer to live by the labor of others rather 
than by their own ; and halt a dozen men, with a daring 
leader at their head, can rob in succession all the members of 
the little community, and thus enable themselves to pass tiieir 
own time iu idleness and dissipation. Assisted b}'- the spoil 
tiieir chief augments his little armv, and increases the number 
of his subjects. As the society increa.ses, he is led, however, 
to commute with them for a share of their produce, which In; 
calls rent, tax, or «ai7^<^ Population and wealth grow but 
slowly, because of the large proportion which the consumers 
bear to the producers. 

By slow degrees, however, they are eiiabled to occupy 
better lands, thus les.sening the distance betvveen themselves 
and the neighboring settlement, where rules another little 
sovereign. Each chi(;f now desires to tax the subjects of his 
neighbor, and war ensues, the object of botli being plunder, 
but disguised under the name of "glory " Each invades the 
domain of the other, endeavoring to weaken his opponent by 
murdering his rent-payers, burning their houses, and wasting 
their little farms, while <uanifesting, perhaps, the utmost 
courtesy to the chief himself. The richer lands are aban- 
doned, and their drains fill up; while the tenants are com- 
pelled to seek for food on the poor soil of the hills to whicii 



78 CHAPTER V. § 1. 

they have fled for safety. At the end of a year or two, peace 
is made, and the work of clearing is recommenced, but und^r 
the most disadvantageous circumstances of diminished wealth 
and population. After a few years of peace, cultivation re- 
gains the point it had before attained. jS'ew wars, however, 
ensue,' to decide which of the chiefs shall collect the whole of 
the (so-called) rent. After great waste of life and property, 
one of them being slain, the other falls his heir, having thus 
acquired both plunder and glory. He now obtains a title, 
becoming a little king. Similar operations being performed 
elsewhere, such kings become numerous ; and as each covets 
the dominions of his neighbors, new wars are made, attended 
always with the same result — the people flying to the hills for 
safety, the best lands being abandoned, food becoming scarce, 
and famine and pestilence sweeping off those who had escaped 
the invading force. 

Small kings now become great ones, surrounded by lesser 
chiefs, who glory in the number of their murders, and the 
amount of their plunder. Counts, earls, marquises, and 
dukes, appear upon the stage, heirs of the power and the 
rights of early robber chiefs. Population and wealth diminish, 
and the love o^ title grows with the growth of barbarism. 
Wars are now made on a larger scale, and greater " glory" is 
acquired. In distant and fertile lands, occupied by a numer- 
ous population, are wealthy cities, whose people, unused to 
arms, may be robbed with impunity — always an important 
consideration to those with whom the pursuit of glory is a 
trade. Provinces are laid waste, and the population exter- 
minated ; or if a few escape, they fly to the mountains, there 
to perish for want of food. Peace follows, after years of 
destruction, but the rich lands are overgrown ; the spades 
and axes, the cattle and sheep, are gone ; the houses are 
destroyed ; their owners have ceased to exist ; and a long 
peace is required to regain the period from which cultivation 
had been driven. Population grows again slowly, and wealth 
but little more rapidly, for ceaseless wars have impaired the 
disposition and respect for honest industry ; while the neces- 
sity for beginning once more on the poor soils adds to the 
distaste for labor. Swords and muskets are now held to be 
more honorable implements than spades and pickaxes ; and 
the habit of union for any honest. purpose being almost ex- 
tinct, thousands are always ready for plundering expeditions. 
War thus feeds itself by producing poverty, depopulation, 
and the abandonment of the fertile soils ; while peace also 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 79 

feeds itself by increasing the number of men and the habit 
of association, because of the constantly increasing power to 
draw supplies of food from the surface already occupied, as 
the almost boundless powers of the earth are developed in the 
progress of population and of wealth. 

§ 2. The views above given are not in accordance with the 
doctrines of Mr. Ricardo, yet history furnishes everywhere 
ample evidence of their truth. In India, we see the rich soil 
relapsing into jungle, while its late occupant starves among 
the hills. In hither Asia, the fertile country washed by the 
Tigris and Euphrates, which once maintained the most power- 
ful communities of the world, is now so utterly abandoned, 
that Mr. Layard had to seek the hills when he sought to find 
a people at home. Farther west are the high lands of Ar- 
menia, still so well occupied as to support a city like Krze- 
roum ; while around the ancient Sinope nothing is to be seen 
but forests of gigantic timber. Near Constantinople, we find 
the great valley of Buyukdere, once known as the " fair land," 
totally abandoned, while the city is supplied with food from 
hills forty or fifty miles distant ; an# this is but a picture in 
miniature of the whole of the great Turkish Empire. The 
rich lands of the Lower Danube, once the busy theatre of 
Roman industry, furnish now but a miserable subsistence to 
a few Servian swineherds and Wallachian peasants. In the 
Ionian islands, the richest lands, once highly cultivated, are 
almost abandoned ; and must continue so to be until that habit 
of association which alone enables man to subjugate nature 
shall once more arise amongst their inhabitants. 

In Africa, with the decline of population, we see the fertile 
soils of the Delta abandoned and the canals filled up ; while 
in the Roman Province we find the rich lands of the Metidja, 
of Bona, and others, almost abandoned — the yet remaining 
population clustering on the slopes of the Atlas. In Italy, 
the once smiling lands of Latium and the Campagna now 
afford but a miserable subsistence to men whose number 
scarcely exceeds that of the cities which once flourished 
there. More north, we see the rich lands of the Siennese 
Republic to have been in cultivation till the sixteenth century, 
when the ferocious Marignan drove to the hills the remnant 
of the population that had escaped the sword, and changed 
the flourishing farms into a pestilential desert. 

In France, in the days of the English wars, the richer 
country was constantly ravaged by fierce bands — the wild 



80 CHAPTER V. § 3. 

Breton, the ferocious Gascon, and the mercenary Swiss, driv- 
ing its cultivators to seek refuge even in the savage Brittanv 
itself. La Beauce, one of the most fertile provinces, be- 
came again a forest ; while from Picardy to the Rhine not a 
house unprotected by city walls, was left to stand. In later 
times, Lorraine was reduced to a desert. Throughout France, 
we witness the effects of perpetual war in the concentration 
of the agricultural population in villages, causing them to 
waste half their time in transferring tliemselves, their rude 
implements, and their products, to and from the lands they 
cultivate ; whereas the same labor bestowed on the land itself, 
would reduce to cultivation the richer soils that remain even 
yet unoccupied. 

§ 3. Crossing the Atlantic, we find further evidence of the 
fact, that as population brings the food from the rich soils, so 
depopulation drives men back to the poor ones. The valley 
of Mexico, which, in the days of Cortez, afforded food for a 
numerous people, is now desolate, its canals choked up, and 
its cultivation abandoned; while strings of mules carry pro- 
visions to the city from a distance of fifty miles. 

In these United States, Virginia once stood at the head of 
the Union ; bat the policy she has so uniformly advocated 
having tended to the exhaustion and abandonment of her soil, 
the consequence is seen in the increasing unhealthiness of the 
parts first occupied, the lower counties bordering on the rivers 
of the Chesapeake. " The entire country," says a recent 
writer, "is full of the ruins of gentlemen's mansions, some of 
them palatial in size, and noble old churches, whose solid 
walls were built of imported bricks. The splendor which 
once filled the counties of Lower Virginia, has departed. 
And wh}^ ? Because the abandoned country has become 
again miasmatic." 

This mtasmatic region covers all the sea- coast of Virginia, 
JSForth and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, and Louisiana, except occasionally an isolated spot; 
and extends inland from ten to a hundred miles In tlie 
vicinity of Charleston, it is death to sleep a single night out- 
side the city ; and even riding across the infected district by 
night, on the railroad, has, as we are assured, caused all the 
passengers to vomit like a sea-sick company on shipboard. 

As a consequence of this, Virginia and Carolina have 
steadily declined in their position in the Union ; and must 
continue so to do until increase in the power of associatiou 



OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 81 

shall enable them to cultivate their richest lands. In Jamaica, 
the same fact is found — a recent return of property showing 
that sugar and coffee estates, embracing au area of more 
than 400,000 acre.^, have been abandoned. 

Whenever populaiwn and xceallh, and the consequent 
power of combination, are permitted to increase, there arises 
a tendency towards the abandonment of the poor- lands first 
cultivated, as is proved by the experience of England, Scot- 
land, Sweden, and some of our Northern States. Whenever, 
on the contrary, these decline, it is the rich soils that are aban- 
doned, men flsn'ng to the poor ones to obtain the means of 
subsistence. With every step in the former direction, there 
is an increase in the value of man, and a decline in that of all 
the commodities required for his use, accompanied by a grow- 
ing facility of accumulation ; whereas, with every movement 
in the latter one, he becomes more and more the slave of his 
fellow-man. with constant increase in the value of commodi- 
lies, and as constant decline in his own. 



83 • CHAPTER VT. § 1. 



CHAPTER yi. 

OP VALUE. 

g 1. Oiigin of the idea of Value. Measure of value. Limited l)y the cost of reproductimi. 
I 2. IJua of comparison inseparably connected with that of value. Commodities and 

tilings decline in value as the power of association and combination becomes more and 

mure complete. Man grows in value as that of commodities declines. 
J 3. Diaiinution in the proportions charged for the use of commodities and things, a neces- 
sary consequence of dimiuutiau in the cost of reproduction. Definition of value, 
g 4. What are the things to which we attach the idea of value? Why are they valued.' 

How much is their value 1 
g 5. Erroneous view of Bastiat in relation to the idea of value. Its adoption as the 

fouudatiuu of a new politico-economical school. 
^ 6. Inconsistencies of Adam Smith and other economists, in reference to the cause of 

value. Phenomena in relation to value in land exhibited in Great Britain, the Uniti^i 

States, and other countries, 
g 7. Law of distribution. Its universal application. 
§ 8. All values merely the measure of the resistance oifered by nature to the possession 

of the thiags desired. 
? 9. All matter susceptible of being rendered useful to man. That it may become so, he 

must have power for its direction. Utility the measure of the power of man over 

nature. Yalue, that of nature's power over man 

§ 1. With the growth of numbers, and of the power of 
association, man is everywhere seen to become more and 
more the master of nature ; and possessed of numerous ob- 
jects to which he attaches the idea of value. Why he does 
so, and how he measures value, we may now examine. 

Our Crusoe, on his island, was surrounded by fruits and 
flowers, birds and beasts, nearly all of which were beyond the 
reach of his unassisted forces. The hare could escape him 
by means of superior speed ; the bird could soar on high, or 
the fish descend into the ocean depths ; while he was dying 
of hunger in sight of all these materials of food. The tree 
would furnish him with a house, had he only an axe and a 
saw ; but for want of these he is compelled to dwell in a 
cave of the earth. Working at first with his hands alone, he 
is forced to depend on the fruits spontaneously yielded by 
the soil. Later, having formed a bow, or fashioned a canoe, 
he obtains a little animal food, to which, because of the diffi- 
culty of obtaining it, he attaches high importance, and here 
it is that we find the origin of the idea of value, which is 
simply our estimate of the residance to he overcome before we 
can enter upon the possession of the thing desired. That 
resistance diminishes with every increase in the power of 
raan to commacd the always gratuitous services of nature j 



OF VaLLE. S3 

and hence we see in advancing communities a steady increase 
in the value of labor as measured by commodities, and decline 
in that of commodities when measured by labor. 

At first, vegetable food could be obtained with less exer- 
tion than animal food ; but now possessed of the bow, meat 
can be obtained more readily than fruit. Relative valuei 
change at once, birds and rabbits falling as compared with 
fruits. Fish are still unattainable, and he would give, pi-r- 
haps, half a dozen rabbits for a single perch. Converting a 
bone into a hook, he next obtains fish at less cost tlian any 
other kind of food. At once, the former declines as compared 
with the latter; but man rises in value as compared with all, 
because of the new command he has acquired over the forces 
of nature. Obtaining food, now, at the cost of only half his 
time, he can apply the remainder to the making of clothing, 
the enlargement of his habitation, and the improvement of all 
his instruments. 

With every step, his first machinery declines in value, 
because of the diminished cost of rejoroduction. In the out- 
set, he could with difficulty obtain a cord with which to make 
a bow ; but now the bow enables him to obtain birds and 
rabbits that furnish him with cords ; and thus the bow itself 
causes a depreciation of its own value. So is it everywhere 
— coal aiding us in obtaining supplies of iron ore, which dim- 
inish the value of iron ; and iron enabling us to obtain larger 
supplies of coal, with constant decline in the value, of fuel, 
and increase in that of man. 

Passing along the coast in his canoe, Crusoe finds another 
person sin)ilarly situated, except that in some directions lit 
has acquired more, in others less, power over nature. The 
latter has no boat, but his arrows are better, enabling him to 
kill more birds in a day than the former could do in a week. 
The value of these is, therefore, less in his eyes, while that 
of fish is greater. Here we have the circumstances prelim- 
inary to the establishment of a .system of exchanges. The 
one could oljtain more meat in a day, by the indirect process 
of catching fish to be exchanged with his neighbor, than he 
could in a week with his inefficient bow and arrows, while 
the other could obtain more fish by devoting a day to the 
shooting of birds than he would in a month while deprived 
of the hook and line ; and i)oth see that by means of exchange 
'abor may be made more ))roductive. Each, however, seeks 
to obtain day's labor for day's labor. Tlie one has fi.<h of 
various kinds, and he values each in proportion to the ditti- 



84 CHAPTER VI. § 2. 

cult J of obtaining it, regarding perhaps a single rock-fish as 
the equivalent of half a dozen perch. The other has animal 
food of various kinds,and he, in like manner, regards a turkey 
as the equivalent of half a dozen rabbits. Value in exchange 
is, thus, determined bj the same rules that governed each 
when working by himself. Both now profit by combining 
tiieii' efforts to improve their condition, each being able to 
devote himself with less interruption to the pursuit for which 
he is most fitted ; and the returns to labor increase as in- 
dividualily becomes more and more developed. Had our 
islander, instead of a neighbor, been so fortunate as to obtain 
a wife, a similar system of exchange would have been es- 
tablished. He would follow the chase, while she would cook 
the meat and convert the skins into clothing. He would 
raise the flax, and she would convert it into cloth. The 
family increasing, one would till the earth, a second furnish 
animal food, and a third manage the household, manufacture 
clothing, or prepare food. Here would be a system of ex- 
changes as complete, so far as it went, as that of the largest 
city. 

§ 2. The idea of comparison is inseparably connected with 
that of value : we compare the commodities produced with 
the labor of body or mind given for them. In exchanging, 
the most obvious mode is to give labor for labor; and each 
watches carefully that he does not give more effort than is 
given in return. 

Our colonists having now succeeded in making a rude axe 
of flint, there is an immediate change in the value of the 
houses, boats, or fuel, previously produced, because they can 
now be reproduced with diminished labor; but the value of 
fish or rabijitvS remains unchanged. If now, one has fish to 
part with, while another has a surplus of fuel, the latter must 
give twice as much as before, because with the aid of the axe 
he can reproduce that quantity with half the labor. The 
cost of production has now ceased to be the measure of value, 
the cost of reproduction having fallen in consequence of im- 
provement in the means of applying human power. The 
more slowly such improvements are made, the more steady 
is the value of property as compared with labor; the "more 
rapidly they are made, the more rapid is the growth of the 
power of accumulation, and the decline of value in all existing 
machinery as compared with labor. 

Suppose now a vessel to arrive, the master of which needs 



OF VALUE. 85 

fruit, fi.sh or meat, in excliango for which lie olTers iixes, or 
muskets. Our colonists, valuing their commodities by the 
elVort required for their production, will not give five days' 
labor in venison if they can obtain what they require in ex- 
change for potatoes that have cost only that of four. 

In precisely the same manner will they estimate the value 
of the commodities offered to them in exchange. If it had 
cost them the labor of six months to make a rude axe, and if 
they could now obtain a good one at the same cost, it would 
be more advantageous to do so than to employ their time in 
producing another similar to that which they already have. 
As, however, they could not themselves make a luusket of 
any kind, they would be willing to give for it the provision.'S 
accumulated in a year. 

Let us here suppose each supplied with an axe and a mus- 
ket, and examine the effect. Both possessing the same 
machinery, their labor will be of equal value, and the produce 
of a day of one will still exchange for that of a day of the 
other. The house that had cost the labor of a year, could 
now be built in a month, but is so inferior to those that can 
be constructed Avith the aid of the new axe, Miat it is aban- 
doned. The first axe in like manner declines in value. The 
increase of capital has caused a diminution in the value of 
all that had been accumulated before the ship's arrival ; 
while that of labor, as compared with houses, has risen, two 
months now providing shelter superior to what had at first 
been obtained in twelve. The value of provisions likewise 
falls, a week's labor of a man armed with a musket producing 
more venison than that of months without its aid. 

A man can draw 200 pounds four miles in an hour, 
and a horse, at the same rate, 1800 ; therefore, in mere brute 
force, nine men equal only a single horse. Mastering the 
latter by means of his intelligence, and availing himself of 
his strength, a man can move ten times the previous weight. 
Discovering the wonderful power of steam, he now, with the 
help of half a dozen men to furnish fuel, controls a power 
equal to hundreds of horses, or thousands of men. The force 
by which this is accomplished is in the man ; and as tnis 
force is brought to bear upon matter, his labor becomes more 
productive, with constant increase in his power of future 
progress. The master of the vessel obtained for an axe, 
produced by a mechanic in a single day, provisions that had 
required months for their collection — and why ? Because the 
labors of the mechanic had been aided by intelligence, wlurcas 



86 CHAPTER VI. § 3. 

the pool' and lonely settlers had been aimost entirely depend- 
ant on that quality in which they were excelled by the horse 
and many otlier animals^ — mere brute force.- 

So is it throughout the world. The savage gives skins, 
the product of months of exertion, for a few beads, a knife, a 
musket, and a little powder. The people of Poland give 
wheat produced by the labor of months for clothing produced 
by that of a few days, assisted by capital in the form of 
machinery, and the intellect required for guiding it. The 
people of India give a year's labor for as much clothing as 
is given in these United States for that of a month. The 
mechanic earns as much in one week as the mere laborer does 
in two. 

In order that quantity of labor may be a measure of value, 
there must be equal power to command the services of nature. 
The product of two carpenters in New York wjll not vary 
much from that of two tailors or shoemakers. The time of 
a laborer in Boston is nearly equal in value to that of another 
in Cincinnati or St. Louis ; but it will not be given for that 
of a laborer in Paris or Havre, because the latter is not aided 
by machinery to the same extent. The value of labor varies 
slightly in diiferent parts of France, England, or India ; but 
the variation is trifling compared with that which exists be- 
tween any part of India, and any portion of these United 
States. Here we find the same effect at the same time, but 
at different places, that has before been shown to be produced 
at the same place, but at different times. Labor grows in 
value with the substitution of mental for muscular force — of 
the peculiar qualities of man for those which he possesses in 
common with the animals ; and in precisely the same ratio 
do all commodities decline in value. 

§ 3. Diminution in the value of capital is attended by 
diminution in the proportion of labor given for its use by 
those who, unable to purchase, desire to hire it. Had the 
first axe been the exclusive property of one of our colonists, 
he would have demanded more than half of the wood that 
could be cut, in return for its mere use. The axe, however, 
great as was its cost, could do but little work ; and large as 
was the proportion of its product that he could demand, the 
quantity he would receive would still be very small. His 
neighbor, on the other hand, would find it to his advantage 
to give three-fourths of the product for the use of the axe ; 
as with it he could fell more trees in a day, than without -t 



OF VALUE. 87 

in a month. The arrival of tlio ship having given tlicni 
better axes at a smaller cost, the one would not give, nor 
could the other demand so large a proportion as before. 
Wlien A possessed the only house in tlie settlement, he could 
have demanded for its use a much larger number of days' 
labor than B would give, when with his axe he could con- 
struct a similar one in a month. In the fourteenth century, 
when a week's labor would command only Hd. in silver, the 
owner of a pound of that metal could demand as compensi'- 
tion for its use a much larger proportion than now, when the 
lnl)orer can obtain that quantity in little more than a fortnight. 
Every improvement by which production is aided, is attended 
not only by a reduction in the value of all previously existing 
machinery ; but also, by a diminution in the proportion of 
(he product of labor that can be demanded in return for the 
use of it. 

Value is the measure of (he resistance to he overcome in 
ohtaining those commodities required for our purposes — of 
flie power of nature over man. The great object of man, in 
this world, is to acquire dominion over nature, compelling 
her to do his work ; and with every step in that direction 
lal)or becomes less severe, while its reward increases. "With 
each, the accumulations of the past become less valuable, 
having less power over labor. With each, the power of 
association grows, with increase in the development of the 
faculties of the individual man, and ecjually constant increase 
in the power of further progress ; and thus, while combination 
of action enables man to overcome the resistance of nature, 
each successive triumph is attended by increased facility for 
further combinations, to be followed by new and greater 
triumphs. 

§ 4. The reader who desires now to verify the correctness 
of the view here presented to him, may do so without leaving 
his room. Let him look around, and see what are the things 
to which he attaches the idea of value. He finds that amongst 
them is 7\ot included the air without which he could not live. 
Heading by day, he attaches no value to light; nor if in 
summer, to heat. If he reads by night, he attaches value to 
the gas that affords him light ; and if it is winter, to the fuel 
by who.se combustion he is warmed. Why"? Because the 
former is supplied gratuitously by nature, wlien and where it 
is meded ; whereas, labor is required to obtain the latter. 
Coal is supplied by nature gratuitously, but effort is required 



88 CHAPTER VI. § 5. 

to place it where it is to be consumed. To prepare tandlcH 
also requires a certain amount of labor ; and we value the 
coal and the candle because of the necessity for overcoming 
the obstacles to the gratification of our desires. 

Asking himself next, hoia much value he attaches to each 
object, he finds that it is limited to the cost of reproduction, 
and that the longer the time which has elapsed since it was 
made, the greater has been the decline in its value. That of 
the pen just now produced is unchanged ; while the chair or 
table, ten years old, has fallen below its original value, because 
of improvement in the machinery by which it may be repro- 
duced. The book which he reads has perhaps declined still 
more. A copy of the Bible, of Milton, or of Shakespeare, can 
now be obtained by th^ labor of a single day of a skilled 
workman, better in quality than could, half a century since, 
have been obtained in return for that of a week ; the neces- 
sary consequence of which has been a decline in the value of 
all existing copies, whether in private libraries or in the hands 
of book-sellers — the cost of reproduction being the limit which 
value cannot exceed.* 

§ 5. The most recent theory on this subject is that of 
M. Bastiat, who, in his Harmonies Economiques, tells his 
readers that " it is exchange that gives existence to value," 
this latter idea having made its fi!rst appearance on the 
first occasion on which, when one man had said to another 
do this for me and I will do that for you, the two had arrived 
at an agreement as to the conditions of the exchange. His 
definition of value is, that it is the relation between the service 
to be rendered and that which is to be received in return. 

To this it may be objected, that Crusoe, when alone on his 
island, attached to the poorest instruments a value greatly 
exceeding that which he attached to those better ones that he 
was enabled to obtain after the arrival of Friday permitted 
him to enter upon the exchange of service. All experience 
proves that the more perfect the power of combination, and 
the greater the facility of exchange, the more rapid is the 
tendency towards diminution in the value of commodities, and 
towards increase in the value of man. Were the theorj' 

* It may be asked, Why then should a very rare copy of an an- 
cient work sell for many times its original price? Value is limited 
to the cost of reproduction ; and where an object cannot be re- 
produced, its value has no limit but the fancy of those who desire 
to possess it. 



OP VALUE. 8H 

now under consideration a true one, directly the reverse of 
this would be the case. 

Exchanges establish measures of value suited to the 
places and times at which they are made, but they have no 
more to do with the ci'eation of the idea of value than has 
the yard stick with the origination of the idea of length. 
The perception of distance leads to a comparison of distances, 
and ultimately to the construction of instruments by means 
of which they may be measured. In like manner, the per- 
c^ption of value leads to a comparison of values, and finally 
to those exchanges which demand an adjustment of the rela- 
tions of the things to be exchanged. 

Commenting upon this remarkable error of so eminent an 
economist, Professor Ferrara, of Turin, tells his readers, that 
"the judgment which in the social state expresses itself in 
the exchange of money against a hat or a coat — that one 
which prompts us to say that a crown is worth as much as a 
cap — is precisely similar to that of the isolated savage who 
decides within himself, that his only money, that is, the effort 
reciuired for mounting a tree, is worth as much, or more, than 
the fruit it will enable him to secure." That such is cer- 
tainly the case, no one who reflects at all upon the subject 
can, even for a moment, hesitate to admit. 

That M. Bastiat should so far have erred is certainly ex- 
traordinarv, but still more so is it, that another and very volu- 
minous writer should be now engaged in building u]» a new 
system of political economy based upon this error alone, i)ro- 
claiming it aloud as having made "the greatest revolution 
that has been effected in any science since the days of 
Galileo. "* In his view, "value requires the concurrence of 
two minds," although Crusoe is seen to have given the con- 
tinued labor of many months to the effort to construct a poor 
canoe. In strict accordance with that idea he assures his 
readers, that it is "demand alone that gives value to pro- 
duction ;" and yet, history abounds with evidences of the fact 
that it is demand that stimulates supjjly, and thus diminishes 
the value of things while augmenting that of man. The 
present annual demand of Britain for coal requires for its 
satisfaction little less than 100,000,000 tons, and yet, the 
value of fuel as compared with ]al)or is not one-fourth as 
great as.it was when the demand of all Europe was less than 
a single million. 

* Macleod. Dictionan/ of Political Economy, article Bastiat. 



90 CHAPTER VI. § e. 

§ 6. "Labor," says Adam Smith, " was tiie first price, tli« 
original purchase-money, paid for all things, and itconstitutcH 
the ultimate and real standard by which their values can be 
estimated and compared." In another place, however, he 
tells his readers that the price paid for the use of land " is 
not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid 
out upon its improvement," " but to what the farmer can af- 
ford to give," and "is naturally a monopoly price." "VVe 
have hei'e a cause of value in land additional to the labor ex- 
pended for its benefit ; and thus does he establish a law for it 
entirely different from that propounded as the cause of value 
" in all things." 

Mr. McCulloch informs us that "labor is the only source 
of wealth," and that "none of the spontaneous productions 
of nature have any value, except what they owe to the labor 
required for their appropriation." Nevertheless, he thus con- 
tinues : "The natural forces may be engrossed by somci in- 
dividuals who may exact a price for their services. But 
does that show that these services cost the engrossers any 
thing ? If A has a waterfall on his estate, he may probably 
get a rent for it. It is plain, however, that the work per- 
formed by it is as gratuitous as that performed by the wind 
acting on the blades of a windmill. The only difference is, 
that all have it in their power to avail themselves of the 
services of the wind, and no one can intercept the bounty of 
nature, or exact a price for that which she freely bestows ; 
whereas A, having acquired a command over the waterfall, 
has it in his power to prevent its being used, or to sell its 
services." 

We have here the same contradiction already seen in the 
Wealth of Nations. Labor is, we are told, the only cause of 
value ; yet the chief item among the values of the world is 
in the hands of those who "intei'cept the bounty of nature, 
and exact a price for that which she freely bestows" — and 
they are enabled to demand that price because, "having 
acquired a command over certain natural forces, they can 
prevent them from being used by any who are unwilling to 
pay for their services." There are thus, according to both 
these authorities, two causes of value — labor and monopoly ; 
the first standing alone as regards all "the spontaneous pro- 
ductions of nature ;" and the two being combined in reference 
to land, the great source of all productio.n. 

In like manner, Mr. Ricardo assures his readers that the 
price paid for the use of land is to be divided into tv/o por- 



OF VALUE. 91 

tions : firsi, that whicli maybe demandca in return for the 
hibor which has been "employed in ameliorating the quality 
of the land, and in erecting such buildings as are necessary 
to secure and preserve the produce;" secondly, "that which 
is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indes- 
tructible powers of the soil." 

Mr. J. B. Say informs us that : " The earth is not the only 
material agent with proauctive power; but it is the only 
one, or nearly so, which can be appropriated. The water of 
rivers and of the sea, which supplies us with fish, gives 
motion to our mills, and supports our vessels, has productive 
power. The wind gives force, and the sun heat, but hai)pi]v 
no man can say, 'The wind and sun belong to me, and 1 will 
be paid for their services.' " 

Mr. Senior, on the contrary, insists that air and sunshine, 
the waters of the river and the sea, " the land and all its at- 
tributes," are susceptible of appropriation. In order, in his 
view, that a commodity may have value, it must be useful, 
susceptible of appropriation, and, of course, transferable, and 
liiuitt'd in supply ; all of which qualities are, as he supposes, 
possessed by land, the owners of which are therefore enabled 
to charge monopoly prices for its use. 

Mr. Mill says, that the rent of land is a "price paid for a 
natural agency ;" that no such price is paid in manufactures ; 
that "the reason why the use of land bears a price is simply 
the limitation of its quantity ;" and that, " if air, heat, elec- 
tricity, chemical agencies, and the other powers of nature 
employed l)y manufacturers were sparingly supjilied, and 
could, like land, be engrossed and appropriated, a rent would 
be exacted for them also." Here again we have a monopoly 
value additional to the price which is paid for the labor 
bestowed on the land. 

The reader has seen that of those portions of the earth 
which man converts into bows, canoes, ships, houses, books, 
or steam-engines, the value is determined by the cost of re- 
produclion ; that, in all advancing communities, this is less 
tlian the cost of production ; and that the decline is always 
most rapid when population and the power of association 
increase most rapidly. When, however, we look to those 
portions of it which he cultivates, we find, according to all 
these writers, an opposite law — the value of land being equal 
to the cost of producing it in its existing form, ;;/»« the valu(! 
of a monopoly power increasing with the growth of numbers, 
and most rapidly when the growth of i)!)puIation and of tho 
pi)W(!r of association is most rapid. 



92 CHAPTER VI. § 6. 

To admit this, would be to deny the universality of the 
laws that govern matter, and to assert that the great Archi- 
tect of the universe had given us a system in the working 
of which there was no harmony whatsoever. To determine 
whether this be so or not, let us examine the facts of the 
case, as exhibited in the value of land compared with the 
labor that would now be required to reproduce it in its exist- 
ing form. 

Twenty years since, the annual value of the land and mines 
of Great Britain, including the share of the Church, was 
estimated by Sir Robert Peel at £41,800,000, which, at 
twenty-five years purchase, would give a principal of nearly 
£1,200,000,000. Estimating the wages of laborers, miners, 
mechanics, and those by whom their labors are directed, at 
£50 per annum, the land would thus represent the labor of 
24,000,000 of men for one year, or of one million for twenty- 
four years. 

Let us now suppose the island reduced to the state in 
which it was found by CiBsar, covered with forests, and 
abounding in heaths, swamps, and sandy wastes ; then esti- 
mate the labor that would be required to place it in its 
present position : with its lands cleared, enclosed, and di'ained ; 
with its turnpikes and railroads, its churches, school-houses, 
colleges, court-houses, market-houses, furnaces and forges ; 
its coal, iron, and copper mines ; and the tens of thousands 
of other improvements needed for bringing into activity the 
powers of nature ; and it will be found that it would require 
the labor of miUions of men for centuries, even though pro- 
vided with all the best machinery of modern times. 

The value of the farms of New York, under the last census, 
was $554,000,000. Adding the. value of roads, buildings, etc., 
we shall probably obtain double that amount, or the equiva- 
lent of the labor of 1,000,000 of men working 300 days 
in the year for four years, at a dollar a day. Were the land 
restored to its condition in the days of Hendrick Hudson, 
and given to an association of the greatest capitalists in 
Europe, wath a bonus equal to its present value, their private 
fortunes and the bonus would be exhausted before one-fifth 
of the existing improvements had been accomplished. 

The farming land of Pennsylvania was returned at 
$403,000,000. Doubling this to obtain the value of real 
estate and its improvements, we have $806,000,000, equiva- 
lent to the labor of 670,000 men for five years, not one-tenth 
of what would be required to reproduce the State in its pres- 



OF VALUE. 93 

ent condition, were it restored to that in wliieh it stood at 
the date of the arrival of the Swedes, who commenced the 
work of settlement. 

William Penn followed, profiting by what they had done. 
When he had received a grant of all that now constitutes 
Pennsylvania, and westward to the Pacific Ocean, it was 
supposed he had obtained a princely estate. He invested his. 
cajjital in the transport of settlers, and devoted liis attention 
to the new colony ; but, after years of turmoil and vexation, 
found himself so much embarrassed, that in 1708 he mort- 
gaged the whole for £6600, to pay the debts incurred in 
settling the province. He had received the grant in payment 
of a debt amounting, with interest, to £29,200, and his ex- 
penditure, interest included, was £52,373; while the whole 
amount received in twenty years was but £19,460, leaving 
him minus £62,113. Some years later the government agreed 
to give him for the whole £12,000 ; but a fit of apoplexy 
carried him off before the completion of the agreement. At 
his death, he left his Irish estates to his favorite child as the 
most valuable part of his property, the value of the American 
portion being far less than it had cost. The Duke of York,, 
in like manner, obtained a grant of New Jersey, but many 
years afterwards it was ofl:ered for sale at £5000 less than 
had been expended on the province. 

It would be easy to multiply proofs of the fact, that pro- 
perty in land obeys the same law as all other property ; and 
that this applies to cities as well as to land. London, Paris, 
New York, and New Orleans, in spite of their advantages of 
situation, would exchange but for a small portion of the labor 
that would be required for their reproduction were their sites 
restored to their original condition. 

Every one knows that farms sell for little more than the 
value of the improvemenis ; and yet the heaviest of these are 
omitted : nothing being put down for clearing and draining 
the land, for the roads made and the court-house built with 
the taxes paid ; for the church and school-house built by sub- 
scription ; or for a thousand other advantages that give value 
to the property. Were these calculated, it would be found 
that the selling price is cost, minua a large difference. 

With every step in tlfe progress of man towards obtaining 
dominion over the forces of nature, there is a diminution of 
the cost of producing the things required for his use; with 
(;onstant increase in the value of lalior as coni))ared with 
them. That this is as true in regard to land as it is to axes 



94 CHAPTER VI § 7. 

or engines, wheat or cotton-cloth, is proved by the fact thai 
it may everywhere be purchased at less than the cost of 
production. 

§ 1. It may, however, be said : Here are two fields, on 
which equal labor has been bestowed, one of which will com- 
mand twice the cost, and sell for twice the price, of the other. 
If value results exclusively from labor, why is the owner of 
the one so much richer than is he that owns the other ? 

In reply it is easy to show that similar facts exist in rela- 
tion to things whose value is admitted by all to be due 
exclusively to labor. The glass-blower produces various 
qualities of glass from the same material ; some of it almost 
worthless, while a pai"t is of the highest value ; yet the labor 
employed on all has been equally great. All has still the 
same limit of value — the coat of reproduction. The resist- 
ance offered by nature to the production of that of the first 
quality being great, it is equal in value to a large amount of 
labor ; whereas, the resistance to the production of that of 
the lowest quality is small, and it exchanges for a small 
amount of labor. 

A farmer raises a hundred horses, expending upon each a 
similar quantity of food and labor. Arrived at maturity, they 
exhibit a variety of qualities, and their values are likewise 
different. Nevertheless, all those values are but the reward 
of labor and skill applied to the production of horses of cer- 
tain qualities. From year to year the fanner learns to 
diminish the resistance at first experienced, and is enabled to 
obtain a larger proportion of that description of animals which 
commands the highest price. 

Jenny Lind could get a thousand dollars for singing a 
single evening ; while young women w^ho sing in the chorus 
receive less than a single dollar. Were some enterprising 
Barnum now to determine on raising up a new Jenny Lind, 
he would find it necessary to make the experiment on some 
hundreds, or even thousands, of individuals. After enormous 
outlay, if he produced one prodigy who could earn as much 
us that famous songstress, he would also have on hand a 
number inferior to her; and a still larger number of chorus- 
singers whose earnings would not T'epay the cost of their 
maintenance and education ; not to speak of those who had 
died, or had altogether failed. 

Why is Jenny Lind so highly valued ? Because of the 
obstacles to be overcome before an equal voice can he repro- 



OP VALUE. 95 

duced. So is it with all things whatsoever. To what extent 
are they valued ? To that of the cost of reproduction, and 
no more. So is it with land ; the pi-esent value of which 
represents but a very small portion of its cost. 

§ 8. A century since, nature's power over man was strik- 
ingly exhibited in the difficulty attendant upon effecting 
changes of place. Later still, the obstacles to emigration 
from the banks of the Danube to those of the Rhine were 
little less than those which stand now between the shores of 
Europe and those of the Mississippi. Man's power has thus 
greatly grown, and with that growth there comes a tendency 
towards diminution in the value of German land. That land, 
nevertheless, has risen rapidly in price. Why ? Because of 
a simultaneous great development of domestic commerce, 
making demand for labor and its products that had before 
been wasted. The attractive and counter-attractive forces 
are here in vigorous action, and the consequent growth of 
human power now manifests itself in a steady increase of 
the laborer's iDroporlion of a constantly increasing product. 
Nature's power, here represented by the land-owner, steadily 
declines ; that decline, however, being accompanied by a 
constant growth in the quantity of products assigned to 
him. 

The money value of land tends, therefore, steadily to rise, 
and must continue to do so as man becomes more and more 
nature's master. Man himself rises in the scale as com- 
pared with all, and nmst continue so to do as land is made 
more productive, and its products are more fully utilized. 

The limit of nature's power is found in the cost of repro- 
duction. With the growth of human power that tends steadily 
to fall, to the apparent injury of the land-owner. Neverthe- 
less, so perfect is the harmony of all real interests that his 
wealth as steadily increases ; that increase coming to him as 
a necessary consequence of the pursuit of a policy tending to 
the perfect emancipation of the laborer. 

§ 9. Man is surrounded by various natural forces sus- 
ceptible of being utilized. The coal that lies thousands of 
feet below the surface, is as capable of being useful to him 
as that which now burns in the grate ; and the ore remaining 
in the mine, as that converted into stoves or railroad bars. 
To render them useful requires in most cases a great amount 
of physical and intellectual effort ; and it is bm-jiuso of the 



96 CHAPTER VI. § 8. 

necessity for this effort that man attaches the idea of value 
to the things obtained. 

Being in some cases supplied in unlimited abundance 
—as for example the air — they are wholly v/ithout value. In 
others — as in the case of water and electricity — they are fur- 
nished in the form in which they are to be used ; but when 
they need a change of place, they have a value equal to the 
effort required for effecting it. In a more numerous class of 
cases they require changes both of place and form, and have 
then a much higher value because of the increased resistance 
to be overcome. 

That man may be enabled to effect these changes, he must 
first utilize those faculties by which he is distinguished from 
the brute, and for this, association is indispensable. Had 
Bacon, Newton, Leibnitz, or Des Cartes, been placed alone 
on an island, though their capacity for being useful to their 
follow-men would have been just the same, it would have lain 
dormant and without utility. Being, however, enabled to 
associate with other men, like and unlike themselves, their 
various idiosyncrasies, or utilities, became developed. 

If we desire proof that "knowledge is power," we havi 
only to observe the weakness of various communities occupy 
ing the richest soils, which remain unimproved for want of 
tliat combination so indispensable to the development of the 
intellectual faculties ; and on the other hand, the strength of 
others occupying almost the least fertile lands. Few countries 
have a poorer soil for cultivation than our Eastern States ; 
they have little coal, and little .metallic wealth ; yet New 
England occupies a high place among the communities of 
the earth, because amongst her people the habit of associa- 
tion exists to an extraordinary degree, with a corresponding 
mental activity. In Brazil, we see a picture directly the 
reverse, nature there furnisliing a rich soil, abounding in 
valuable minerals which rema'n almost useless for want 
of that activity of mind which results from the association 
of man with his fellow-men. 

The capability of being useful to man exists in all matter; 
but in a state of isolation he cannot acquire the force neces- 
sary for utilizing it. Place him in the midst of a large com- 
munity where employment is infinitely diversified, and his 
faculties become developed. With individuality comes the 
power of association, accompanied with that activity of mind 
which gives power over nature. A century since, he was 
surrounded by electricity, but had not the knowledge re- 



OF value; 97 

quired for makina: it serve liis purposes. Franklin made 
line step by identifying liglitning' with it ; but since then 
Arago, Ampere, -Biot, Henry, Morse, and many otliers, 
have increased the knowledge of its qualities required for 
controlling its movements. Thus, instead of looking upon 
lightning and the aurora as mere objects of wonder, we 
now regard them as manifestations of a great force that can 
be made to carry our messages, plate our forks, and propel 
our ships. 

Utility is the measure of man^s poxoer over nature. 
Value, the measure of nalure^s power ovt*r man. The 
former groics, the latter declines with the power of combina- 
tion among men. Moving thus in opposite directions, they 
exist always in the inverse ratio of each other. 

The waste of food resulting from the various processes to 
which corn is subjected, with a view to improvement in the 
appearance of the bread made from it, is estimated at one- 
fourth of the whole quantity — and this, upon the twenty 
millions of quarters required for Great Britain, is equal to 
live millions. Were all this economized the utility of corn 
would be greatly increased — but the corresponding increase 
in the facility with which food could be obtained, would be 
attended with large decline of value ; and so is it, as we see, 
with all other commodities and things. The man who has 
to descend a hill to the distant spring, pays largely in labor 
for a supply of water for his family ; but when he has sunk a 
well, he obtains a supply quadrupled in quantity in return to 
a twentieth part of the muscular eflfort. The utility having 
increased, the exchangeable value has greatly diminished. 
Next, he places a pump in the well, and here we find a similar 
effect produced. Again, with the growth of population and 
wealth, we find him associating with his neighbors to give 
titility to great rivers, by directing them through streets and 
houses; and now he is supplied so cheaply that the smallest 
coin in circulation pays for more than his predecessors could 
obtain at the cost of a whole day's labor — as a consequence 
of which his family consumes more in a day than had before, 
of necessity, suflBced for a month ; and has its benefits almost 
free of charge. 

The utility of matter increasing with the growth of the 
power of association and combination among men, every step 
in that direction is accompanied by a decline in the value of 
commodities required for their use, and an increase in the 
facility with which wealth may be accumulated. 
9 



98 CHAPTER Vll. § 1. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OP WEALTH. 

g 1. In what does -wealtli consist? Commodities, or things, not wealth to those wlio have 
not the knowledge how to use them. First steps towards the acquisition of wealth al- 
ways the most costly and the least productive. Definition of wealth. 

^ 2. Combination of action essential to the growth of wealth. The less the machinery of 
e.Ychange required, the greater the power of accumulation. Wealth grows with the 
decline in the value of commodities, or things, requii-ed for man's use* and purposes. 

2 3. Of positive and relative wealth. Man's progress in the ratio of the decline in tlie 
value of commodities, and the growth in his own. 

g 4. Material character of the modern pi litical economy. Holds that no values are to be 
regarded as wealth, but those which take a material tbrm. All employments regai'dcd 
as unproductive, that do not lesult in the production of commodities, or things. 

§ 5. Definition of wealth now given, in full accordance with its general signification of 
happiness, prosperity, and power. Grows with the growth of the power of man to 
associate with hia fellowrman. 

§ 1. When Crusoe had made a bow he had acquired ivealth. 
In what did it consist ? In the power he had thus obtained 
for substituting the elasticity of the wood and the tenacity of 
the cord for the muscular effort by means of which alone he 
had hitherto secured supplies of food. Having made a canoe, 
his wealth was again increased, because he could command 
the gratuitous services of water; and having erected a pole 
in his canoe, and placed on it a skin by way of a sail, he 
could command the service of the wind with still further 
augmentation of his wealth. 

Suppose, however, that instead of making a bow or a 
canoe, he had found one, but without the knowledge how to 
use it, would his wealth have been increased ? Certainly not. 
Wealth does not consist in the mere possession of the instru- 
ment, unconnected with the skill required for its direction. 
The mills and furnaces of the Union would not add to the 
wealth of the savages of the Rocky Mountains; nor would 
all our books do so to the man who could not read. 

The people of England were for a thousand years in pos- 
session of boundless supplies of that fuel a bushel of which 
can raise 200,000 pounds a foot in a minute, thus doing 
the work of hundreds of men ; yet, in the absence of the 
knowledge how to utilize its powers, it was not wealth. So, 
100, with the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania. That fuel 
was capable of doing a greater amount, of work than any 
other; but /or that very reason, greater knowledge was 
needed for the development of its latent powers. The greater 



OF WEALTH. 99 

tlie amount of utility latent in any coniraotlity, tlic greater is 
always the resistance to be overcome in subjecting it to the 
control of man. 

The earth is a great machine given to man to be fashioned 
to his purposes. The more he fashion.^ it the better it main- 
tains him, because each step is but prej)aratory to a new and 
more productive one, requiring less effort and yielding larger 
return thereto. The labor of clearing is great, yt-t the return 
is small, the earth being covered with stumps, and filled with 
roots. Each year, as the latter decay, the soil becomes 
enriched, while the labor of ploughing is much diminished. 
The owner has done nothing but crop the ground, nature 
having done the rest; and the aid thus granted hiiu now 
yields far more food than had been at first obtained in return 
to all the labor given to clearing the land. The surplus, too, 
lias furnished manure with which to enrich the poorer lands; 
giving him a daily increasing power over the various treasures 
of the earth. 

In every operation by means of which man subjects the 
earth to his control, the first step is invariably the most costly, 
and the least productive. The drain beginning near the 
stream where the labor is heaviest, frees from water but little 
land. Further distant, the same quantity of labor, profiting 
by what has been already done, frees thrice the extent ; and 
now the most perfect system of drainage may be established 
with less lal)()r than had been at first re(|uired for oiu^ of the 
most imperfect kind. To bring lime into connection with tlu! 
clay on fifty acres, is less laborious than the clearing of a 
single one had been ; yet the process doubles the return 
The man who needs a little fuel, spends much labor in open- 
ing a vein of coal. The enlargement of this, by which he is 
enabled to use a wagon, requires comparatively little effort, 
but it gives him a return that is vastly greater. The first 
railroad runs by towns occupied by a few hundred thousand 
persons. Little branches, costing far less labor, bring into 
connection with it thrice the population. 

All labor given to fa.shioning the great machine is thus 
but the prelude to its further application with increased 
returns. The man who cultivated the thin soils was happy 
to obtain a hundred bushels as compensation for his year'.s 
work; but with the descent of himself and his ueighhors 
towards the more fertile soils, wages have risen, and two 
hundred bushels mav be now expected. His farm will yield 
a thousand bushels'; but it requires the labor of four men 



I JO CHAPTER VII. § 2. 

who must have two hundred each, and the surplus is no more 
At twenty years' purchase, this surplus gives a capital ol 
four thousand bushels, or the equivalent of twenty years* 
wages ; whereas, it may have cost, in the labor of himself, 
his sons, and assistants, the equivalent of a hundred years of 
labor. It has, however, fed and clothed them while they 
worked ; and has been brought to its present value by in- 
sensible contributions made from year to year. 

It is now worth four thousand bushels, because its owner 
has for years taken from it a thousand bushels annually; but 
when it had lain for centuries accumulating fertility, it was 
scarcely worth acceptance. Such is the case with the earth 
everywhere When the coal mines of England were untouched, 
they had no money value. It is now almost countless ; 
yet the land contains supplies for thousands of years. Iron 
ore lands, a century since, being in low esteem, leases upon 
it were granted at almost nominal rents. Now, although 
great quantities have been removed, such leases are deemed 
equivalent to the possession of the largest fortunes. 

The rich lands above described, the coal, the lime, and the 
ore, always possessed the power to be useful to man ; yet 
they were not wealth, because he had not the knowledge 
needed for compelling them to labor in his service. Their 
utility was latent, waiting the action of the human mind for 
its development. 

Wealth consists in the power to command the ever gratu- 
itous services of nature. The greater the power of associa- 
tion, the more diversified are the demands upon the human 
iiitellect ; and the greater, as we have seen, must be the 
development of the peculiar faculties of each member of the 
society ; and the greater the capacity for association. With 
the latter comes increase of man's power over nature and 
over himself; and the more perfect his capacity for self- 
government, the more rapid must be the societary motion, 
the greater the tendency toward further progi'ess, and the 
more rapid the growth of wealth. 

§ 2. In the early periods of society, when men cultivate 
the poor soils, there can be little association or combination 
of action. Population increasing, roads are made and richer 
soils cultivated. The store and the mill coming nearer, the 
settler, having no longer to carry his products many miles in 
search of shoes or flour, has more leisure for the prepara- 
tion of his machine, and the returns to labor are increased 



OF WEALTH. 101 

More people now obtaining food from tlie same surface, new 
)>laces of exchange appear. The wool being converted into 
cloth on the spot, he exchanges directly with the clothier. 
The saw-mill being at hand, he exchanges with the miller. 
'J'he tanner gives him leather for his hides, and the paper- 
maker exchanges paper for his rags. His pov;er to com- 
Dinnd the machinery of exchange is constantly augmenting; 
whereas, his vecesnity for its use is constantly decreasing, 
there being, with eaeh successive year, a greater tendency 
towards having the consumer and the producer take their 
places by each other's side. 

The l(»ss from the use of the machinery of exchange is in 
the ratio of the bulk of the article to be exchanged. Food 
stands first; fuel next; building-stone, third; iron, fourth ; 
cotton, fifth; and so on, — diminishing until we come to laces 
and nutmeg.^. The raw material being that in the formation 
of which the earth has most co-operated, the nearer the place 
of- exchange can be brought to that of production, the less 
nuist be the loss in the process ; according to the well-known 
law of physical science, that whatever diminishes the quantity 
of machinery reciuired, diminishes friction and increases 
power. 

The man who raises food on his own land, is building up a 
machine for giving larger supplies in the future. His neigh- 
bor, to whom it may be given, on condition of sitting still, 
loses a year's work on his machine, and has only gained the 
pleasure of idling away his time. If he has employed him- 
self and his horses for as much time as would have been 
required for raising it, he has wasted labor and manure. 
As nobody, however, gives, it is obvious that the n)an 
who has a farm, and obtains his food elsewhere, must 
pay both for raising and transporting it ; and though 
he may have obtained as good wages in some other pursuit, 
his farm, instead of being improved by a year's cultivation, 
is deteriorated by a j'^ear's neglect ; and he is a poorer niiin 
than if he had raised his own sup]>li('S of food. 

The article of next greatest bulk is fuel. While warming 
his house, he is clearing his land. He would lose by sittinu' 
idle, if his neighbor brought him his fuel ; still more if Ik; 
hauled it ; for he would be wearing his wagon and losing 
manure. Were he to hire himself and his wagon to another 
for the same quantity of fuel that he could have cut on hi.s 
own property, he would lose, for his farm would be unclean d 
So likewise, in taking the stone for his house from his own 



102 CHAPTER VII. § 3. 

fields, he gains doubly, for his house is built, and his land 
is cleaved. 

With every improvement in the machinery of exchange, 
there is a diminution in the proportion which that machinery 
bears to the mass of the commodities exchanged. The man 
who formei'ly sent to market his half-fed cattle, with horses 
and men to drive them, and food for their consumption 
on the road, now fattens them on the ground, and sends 
them by railroad ready for the slaughter-house — keeping 
his men and horses at home to fence and drain ; and employ- 
ing the refuse of his hay and oats in fertilizing his farm. 
His production doubling, he accumulates rapidly, while the 
people around him have more food and clothing. He needs 
laborers in the field, and these require shoes, coats, and 
houses. The shoemaker and carpenter now join the com- 
munity, eating the food on the spot where it had been pro- 
duced. The consumption of flour increasing, the miller comes 
to eat his share while preparing that of others, and the labor 
of exchanging is again diminished, leaving more to be given 
to the land. The lime being now turned up, tons of turnips 
are obtained from the same surface that before gave buahtla 
of rye. The woollen-mill coming next, and the wool no 
longer employing wagons and horses, these are turned to 
transporting coal or iron ore. Production again increasing, 
the new wealth takes the form of a cotton-mill ; and with 
every step the farmer finds thus new demands on the great 
machine he has constructed, with increase in his power to 
improve it. He now obtains large supplies of beef and mut- 
ton, wheat, butter, eggs, poultry, cheese, and other com- 
modities for which the climate is suited ; and all from the 
same land which at first had scarcely afforded the rye required 
for the support of life. 

We have here the establishment of a local attraction tend- 
ing to neutralize that central one of the great city ; and 
where such local centres most exist, there will be always found 
the greatest development of individuality, and the most rapid 
progress in wealth and power. The more nearly the societary 
action approximates to that established throughout the great 
system of which our planet forms a part, the more perfect 
will be the harmony; and the jjiore rapidly will man move 
towards his true position, that of a being of power. 

§ 3. We are accustomed to measure the wealth of individ- 
uals or communities, by the value of the propert}^ they hold ; 



OF WEALTH. 103 

wlicreas wealth grows, as we have soon, witli tho decline of 
'alues. This may seem to be in opposition to the general 
idea of wealth, but the opposition is only apparent and not 
real. The positive wealth of an individual is to be measured 
by the power he exercises ; but his relative, wealth, by tho 
amount of effort required of others before they can acquire 
similar power. A man, owning a house that affords him 
shelter, and a farm that yields him food and clothing, has 
positive wealth. If asked to fix a price at which he would 
part with them, he would estimate the amount of effort that 
would be required of others before they could acquire similar 
power, and find therein the measure of his wealth as com- 
pared with that of others. His positive wealth consists in 
his power over nature ; his relative wealth is the measure of 
his power as compared with that of his fellovv-men. 

Improvements, however, taking place in the mode of 
making bricks and clearing lands, he finds forthwith a dim- 
inution of his comparative, but not of his positive wealth, foi 
his house shelters, and his farm feeds him, as before. The 
decline in the former is a consequence of increase in the 
wealth and power of the whole community ; and that decline 
becomes more rapid as improvements multiply, because each 
successive step is attended by diminution in the obstacles 
offered by nature to the production of houses and farms, and 
increase in the number produced, with steady improvement 
in the condition of the community at large. 

Wealth existing in the ratio of the power to command the 
services of nature, the greater that power the less will be the 
value of commodities, and the greater the quantity that may 
be obtained in return to any given amount of labor. Witli 
every step in this direction, there will be a diminution in the 
proportion borne by the time required for producing the 
necessaries of life, to that which may be given to the prep- 
aration of machinery for obtaining further control over nature ; 
or, to the purposes of education, recreation, or enjoyment. 
'JMie progress of man is, therefore, in the ratio of the decline 
in the value of commodities, and of the increase in his own. 

§ 4. Modern political economy, having made for itself a 
being which it denominated man, from whose composition it 
excluded all those parts of the ordinary man that are common 
to him and the angels, retaining carefully all those common 
to him and the beasts of the forest, has been forced to 
exclude from its definition of wealth all that pertains to tho 



104 CHAPTER VII. § 5. 

feelings, the affections, and the intellect. Its teachers are, 
therefore, driven to the necessity of treating as unpro- 
ductive, all employments of mind or of time that do not 
take a material form. Magistrates, and men of letters, 
teachers, men of science, artists, and others — the Humboldts 
and the Thierrys, the Savignys and the Kents, the Aragos 
and the Davys, the Canovas and the Davids, are regarded as 
unproductive, except so far as they produce things; that is, 
they are considered unproductive in so far as they act directly 
upon mankind ; and yet productive when considered in their 
consequences, tliat is to say in regard to the abilities, the 
faculties, and the values — the knowledge, the skill, the virtue, 
— which they diffuse among men. 

By the definition of wealth above given, this inconsistency 
is avoided, and the word brought back to its original signifi- 
cation of general happiness, prosperity, and power ; not the 
power of man over his fellow-man, but over himself, his 
faculties, and the wonderful forces provided for his use. 

§ 5. Adam Smith was no advocate of centralization. He 
believed in a policy tending to the creation of local centres 
of action, and not in that one which looked to prevent asso- 
ciation by compelling all the farmers of the world to resort to 
a single and distant market when they desired to convert 
their food and wool into cloth. Such, however, was the 
policy of Britain ; and therefore did it become necessary for 
Mr. Malthus to prove that the pauperism which was the 
necessary consequence of centralization, had its origin in a 
great natural law which forbade that the quantity of food 
should keep pace with the demands of an increasing popula- 
tion. Next came Mr. Ricardo, to whom the world is indebted 
for the idea that cultivation had always commenced on the 
rich soils of the earth, and that the men then flying to the 
colonies were going from the poor soils to the rich ones ; 
when directly the reverse had always been the case. His 
doctrine, and that of his followers, is therefore that of dis- 
persion, centralization, and large cities ; whereas that of 
Dr. Smith looked towards association, towards local self- 
government, and towards countries abounding in towns and 
villages, in which should be performed the various exchanges 
of the surrounding territory. 

The whole tendency of modern political economists has 
been in a direction opposite to that indicated by the author 
ot the Wealth of Nations as the true one ; and therefore it 



OF WEALTH. 105 

has been, that their science has become limited to the single 
i lea, how it is that material wealth may be increased 
— leaving altogethtr out of view the consideration of the 
morality, the intelligence, or the happiness, of the com- 
niunitii'S tiiey desired to teach Hence it is tliat it has grad- 
ually taken so-repulsive a form, and that one among its most 
eminent teachers — Mr. Senior — has found himself called upon 
to say to his readers, that the political economist is required 
to look solely to the growth of wealth, and to the measures 
by which it may be promoted; allowing "neither sympathy 
with indigence, nor disgust at profusion and avarice, neither 
reverence for existing institutions, nor detestation of existing 
abuses, neither love of popularity, nor of paradox, nor of 
system, to deter him from stating what he believes to be the 
facts, or from drawing from those facts what he believes to 
be the legitimate conclusions." 

Happily, true science makes no such demands upon its 
teachers. The more they study it, the more must they 
become satisfied that the " indigence" they see around them 
is the result of human, not of divine, laws ; the greater must 
be their " detestation of existing abuses" tending to per- 
petuate poverty and wretchedness ; and the stronger their 
determination honestly to labor for their extirpation. 

Wealth grows with the power of man to satisfy the 
greatest want of his nature, the desire for association with 
his fellow-man. The more rapid its growth, the greater is 
the tendency towards the disappearance of " indigence" on 
the one hand, and of " profusion and avarice" on the other ; 
towards the development of individuality and of the feeling 
of responsibility towards both God and man ; and towards 
havingsociety assume that form which is most calculated for 
facilitating the progress of the latter towards the high position 
for which he was at first intended, that of master and director 
of the great forces of nature. 



106 CHAPTER VIII. § 1. 



CHAl'TER VIII. 



OP THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 

I I. In what society consists The words society and commerce but different models iif 
expressing the same idea. That there may be commerce, there must be dili'eroncua 
Combinations in society subject to tlie law of definite iii'oportions. 

§ 2. Every act of association an act of motion. Laws of motion those which govern thw 
societary movement. All progress in the direct ratio of the substitution of continued 
for intermitted motion. No continuity of motion, and no power where there exist no 
differences. The more numerous the latter, the more rapid is the societary movement, 
and the greater the tendency towards acceleration. The more rapid the motion, the 
gieater is the tendency towards diminution in the value of commodities, and increase in 
that of man. 

§ 3. Causes of disturbance, tending to arrest of the societary motion. In the hunter 
state, brute force constitutes man's only wealth. Trade commences with the traffic in 
bones, muscles, and blood — the trade in man. 

I 4. Trade and commerce usually regarded as convertible terms, yet wholly different — the 
latter being the object sought to be accomplished, and the former only the instrument 
used for its accomplishment. Commerce grows with decline in the powei of the trader. 
AVar and trade regard man as the instrument to be used; whereas, commerce regards 
trade.as the instrument to be used by man. 

g 5. Development of the pursuits of man the same as that of science — the passage being 
from the abstract to the more concrete. War and trade the most abstract, and there- 
fire first developed. 

g 6. Labors required for effecting changes of place, next in the order of develoisment 
Diminish in their proportions, as population and wealth increase. 

g 7. Labors required for effecting mechanical and chemical changes of form. Require a 
higher degree of knowledge. 

g 8. Tital changes in the forms of matter. Agriculture the great pursuit of man. Re- 
quires a large amount of knowledge, and therefore late in its development. 

§ 9. Commerce last in the order. Grows with the growth of the power of association. 

§ 10. The more perfect the power of association, the more does society tend to take a 
natural form, and the greater its tendencj' to durability. 

g 11. Natural history of commerce. Subjects, order, succession, and co-ordination, of the 
classes of producers, transporters, and consumers of industiial products, classified and 
illustrated. The analogies of natural law universal. 

I 12. Erroneous idea that societies tend, naturally, to pass through various forms, ending 
always in death. No reason why any society should fail to become more prosperous 
from age to age. 

g 13. Theory of Mr. Ricardo leads to results directly the reverse of this — proving that man 
must become more and more the slave of nature, and of his fellow-men. 

§ 1. Crusoe was obliged to work alone. When he had 
been joined by Friday, society commenced ; but in what did 
it consist ? In the existence of another person on his island ? 
Certainly not. Had Friday refrained from talking to him 
and from exchanging services with him, there would still have 
been no society. It was the exchange of services which pro- 
duced society; or in other words, association. Every act 
of association being an act of commerce, the terms society 
and commerce are but different modes of expressing the 
same idea. 

That commerce may exist, there must be difference. Had 



OF THE FOKMATION OF SOCIETY. 107 

Crusoe and Friday been limited to the exercise of an}' one 
and the same facuhy, there could have been no more associa- 
tion between them than between two particles of oxygen or 
hydrogen. Bringing these two elements together, coml)ina- 
tion takes place ; and so it is with man. Society consists in 
combinations resulting from the existence of differences. 
Among purely agricultural communities association scarcely 
exists ; whereas, it is found in a high degree where the farmer, 
the lawyer, the merchant, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the 
mason, the miller, the spinner, tlie weaver, the builder, the 
smelter of ore, the refiner of iron, and the maker of engines, 
have been brought together. 

So, too, is it in the inorganic world ; the power of com- 
bination growing with the increase of differences, but always 
in accordance with the law of definite p7-oportions. A 
thousand atoms of oxygen placed in a receiver, will remain 
motionless ; but introduce a single atom of carbon, and ex- 
cite their affinities, and motion will be produced, a portion 
of the former combining with the latter, and producing car- 
bonic acid. The remainder of the oxygen will continue 
motionless. If, however, successive atoms of hydrogen, 
nitrogen, and carbon, be introduced, new combinations will 
be formed, until motion will have been produced throughout 
the whole, but always in obedience to a certain well-ascer- 
tained law of proportions. 

So is it with Society, the tendency to motion being in the 
direct ratio of the harmony of the p)'^'oporlions of the parts.* 
Inorganic bodies, however, have always, and in all places, 
the same power of combination. Not so with man. Being 
capable of progress, the power of combination, with him, 
grows with the successive development of his faculties ; and 
should increase from year to year as society attains more 
and more to those proportions which are necessary for 
taking up each and every faculty of the individual man. 
Association increases with the increase of differences, and 
diminishes with their diminution, until at leiigth motion 
ceases to exist; as has been the case in all countries which 
have declined in wealth and population. 

§ 2. In the inorganic world, every coml)ination is an act 
of motion. So it is in the social one, every act of association 
being an act of motion, ideas being communicated, services 
rendered, and commodities exchanged. All force results 
r.-om motion. What, then, are its laws ? 



108 CHAPTER VIII. § 2. 

A body moved by a single force proceeds always in the 
same direction until stopped by a counteracting one. The 
latter, we know, is found in gravitation, and so long as the 
force exercised by man is so counteracted, his motions are 
liable to constant intermission. In the earl}'- period of 
society he obtains power to grind his grain by raising and 
dropping a stone ; he moves through the water by help of an 
oar ; or he knocks an animal on the head by means of a club 
— all these operations being the applications of a single force, 
and all of them, consequently, intermittent motions, requiring 
a constant repetition of that same force. There is thus a 
constant waste of power, while the motion produced is small. 

For this reason it is, that he constantly endeavors to obtain 
a continuous motion ; and this he does by imitating the 
mechanism that governs the motions of the heavenly bodiest 
In rolling a ball, a hogshead, or a bale of cotton, he brings 
gravitation to his aid. To move bodies which cannot be 
rolled, he constructs an instrument — a wheel — that will re- 
volve on its own axis, as does the earth, and between two 
such machines he places the body required to be moved. 
To conquer the resistance of friction, he lays down an iron 
rail, and thus obtains continuous action with high velocity. 

Examining the progress of man towards obtaining power 
over nature, we find it to be in the direct ratio of the sub- 
stitution of continuous for intermitted action. From the 
sharpened shell of Crusoe, he passes to the knife, the saw, 
the cross-cut saw, and finally to the circular one; obtaining 
thus from the same muscular effort results many thousands 
of times increased. 

In the process of drainage, the farmer seeks only the es- 
tablishment of continuity of motion. Knowing that stagnant 
water is destructive of vegetable life, he digs canals, lays 
pipes, and cuts away the trees to admit the sun ; and having 
thus enabled motion to take place, he obtains crops thrice 
Increased in quantity. 

Everywhere in nature, whether in the circuit necessary to 
develop electricity, the motion of the winds, the formation 
of the dew, or the circulation of the blood, we find force ap- 
plied by means of continuous motion; and the more rapid 
the motion the greater is the force exerted. 

In the movements of the isolated settler there can be none 
of the continuity needed for the attainment of force. De- 
pendent for food on his powers of appropriation, he wanders 
ever extensive surfaces, often in danger of death from famine. 



OF THE FOKMATION OF SOCIETY. 109 

Even wlien successful, he is conipelled to intermit liis efforts, 
and to give much of his time to the work of effecting the 
change of j^lace required for bringing his food, his miserable 
habitation, and himself together He must be, in turn, cook 
and tailor, mason and carpenter. Deprived of artificial light, 
his nights are wholly useless; while the power to apply his 
Jays productively is dependent on the chances of the 
weather. 

Discovering, however, that he has a neighbor, exchanges 
arise between then., but, being at a distance from each other, 
an effort is needed for bringing their commodities togetiier. 
Difficulties, too, exist in settling the terms of trade. The 
fisherman has taken many fish, but now the hunter, having 
chanced to obtain a supply, needs only fruit, of which the 
fisherman has none to give. The absence of difference is 
here a bar to association ; and this difficulty is seen to exist 
in every community in which there is no diversity of employ- 
ment. The farmer or planter has no need to exchange with 
his brother farmer or planter, nor the shoemaker with the 
shoemaker; and to the absence of that variety which is 
necessary for the production of unity it is due, that in the 
infancy of society tiiere are so many obstacles in the way of 
commerce as to render the trader, who assists in their 
removal, the most important member of the community. 

As wealth and population grow, there is an increase in 
the societary motion, the husband exchanging services with 
the wife, the parents with the cliildren, and the children with 
sach other. Other families are seen around, each revolving 
on its own axis, while the community of which they form a 
part, is steadily revolving around a common centre — a system 
corresponding with that which maintains the wonderful order 
of the universe being thus gi'adually established. 

With each step gained, we find a tendency to increased 
velocity ; and as to man has been granted the capacity for 
further progress, such must necessarily be the case. To the 
first little society, the making of a footpath required great 
exertion ; but now, with the growth of numbers and of wealth, 
it constructs turn-pike roads and railroads, each of these in 
succession, although so greatly more efficient, being accom- 
plished with diminished effort. We have here the accelerated 
motion witnessed when a body falls to the earth. In the first 
second it may fall but a single foot, but at the end of ten 
seconds, it has fallen 100 feet; at the end of the second ten, 
400,_of the third, 900,— of the fourth, 1,600,— of the fifth. 
10 



110 CHAPTER VIII. § 3. 

2,500, — and so on until at the end of a thousand seconds, it 
has fallen a million of feet. Had it been stopped at the end 
of each foot, and required to take a new departure, it would 
have fallen but 1000 feet. Thus is it with society. At first 
there is little motion ; but as association grows, the power 
of further advance increases at a constantly accelerating rate. 
The improvements of the last ten years have been greater 
than those of the preceding thirty ; the latter had ex- 
ceeded those of the century which had preceded ; and in 
that century man had obtained more power over nature than 
in the long period that had elapsed since the days of Alfred 
and of Charlemagne. 

In order that there may be continuous societary motion, 
there must be security of person and property ; but when, 
men are widely scattered, this can have no existence. The 
only law then prevailing being that of force, the strong man 
tramples on and plunders those who are weak ; sometimes 
seizing on land, and compelling them to work it for his 
profit ; at others, placing himself across the road and forbid- 
ding all intercourse except on terms settled by himself ; oi 
lastly, dispossessing them of houses, farms and implements, 
and perhaps selling husbands and wives, parents and children, 
into slavery, as further addition to the spoils of " glorious 
war." In all these cases there is, as the reader will observe, 
a retardation of motion, at the cost of those who live by 
labor, for the benefit of those who live by appropriating to 
themselves the produce of the labor of others. 

Whatever promotes motion in society, diminishes the value 
of commodities, and increases that of man. Whatever retards 
the socifetarv movement, and prevents the power of associa- 
tion, prevents also the decline of values, retards the growth 
of wealth, arrests the development of individuality, and 
diminishes the value of man. 

§ 3. Our colonists have hitherto been presented as the 
heads of the only two families on the island, enjoying security 
of person and property ; and, therefore, enabled to pass steadily 
onward towards increased wealth, prosperity, and happiness. 
Such, however, has never yet,, been seen to be the case : 
always and everywhere there have existed causes of disturb- 
ance, the action of which we shall here examine. 

Let us now add to the occupants of the island a third, re- 
markable for the strength of his arm, able to dictate to his 
neighbors and willing to live at their expense rather than 



or THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. ill 

•fork himself. Placing liimsolf between them, he sa3's t(» A, 
ilie possessor of the canoe : " Bring your fish to me ; it will 
give you less trouble than to carry them across the island, 
and I will arrange the terms of exchange between you and 
my neighbor B." To the latter he says: "Bring me your 
liirds, rabbits and squirrels, and I will negotiate the terms OD 
which you shall have fish from A." 

To this they might object, that they were perfectly com- 
petent to manage their own exchanges, and that the}' would 
thus save the cost of an agent; and were they united they 
might efl'ectualh' resist him in his efforts to live at their 
expense. As any such combination, however, would batHe 
him, he stirs up strife, knowing well that the wider ajjart he 
can keep them the more they must be dependent on his will, 
and the larger the proportion of their property which he can 
appropriate to himself 

Their families, however, increasing, it occurs to some of 
them that their situation might be improved by measures 
that would enable them to work together. Although A has 
only a bow, his son might procure a canoe, and thus be 
enabled to exchange fish for meat without the necessity for 
passing across the island This, however, does not suit the 
purposes of the trader, nor will he permit it to be done 
Already enriched by the product of his neighbors' labor, he 
can now pay for help to be used in maintaining his authority ; 
and amongst their children he knows of some who would 
live by the labor of others rather than by their own. Poor 
and dissolute, they are ready to sell their services to an em- 
l)loyer who will enable them to eat, drink, and make merry ; 
and now the hired ruffian appears upon the stage. 

Larger revenues being now needed, new efforts are recpiired 
for preventing association at home, or exchange abroad, with- 
out contribution to the trader's treasury. With every step 
in this direction there is a diminution of ability to construct 
machinery by the help of which to obtain power over nature, 
an increase in the value of commodities consequent on the 
increase in the difficulty of ol)taining them, a decline in the 
value of man, and a retardation of his progress towards 
wealth, prosperity, and happiness. How far this view is in 
accordance with the facts of history, we may now examine. 

In the aljsence of power to command the services of nature 
that marks the origin of societ\', man is dependent almost 
entirely on his physical powers for the necessaries of 
life; and these powers varying in different persons, there is 



112 urfAPTER VIII. § 3. 

great inequality in the conditions of their existence. Childreis 
and women are the slaves of husbands and parents; -while 
those who from either age or disease are incapacitated for 
labor are generally permitted to perish for want of food. 

In the hunter state, where man merely appropriates the 
spontaneous gifts of nature, his only wealth consists in mere 
brute force. Compelled to severe exercise in search of food, 
and deficient in the clothing requisite for the maintenance of 
animal heat, he needs large supplies of food to repair the 
waste — the hunters and trappers of the West being allowed 
as much as even eight poiinds of meat a day. 

To furnish the mere hunter with as much food as could 
be obtained from half an acre under cultivation, it requires, 
as we are told, no less than 800 acres of land. Famines 
being consequently frequent, men are forced to have re- 
course to the most nauseous food ; hence we find eaters of 
earth and eaters of men, both belonging to that stage of 
society in which, men being few, they may, according to 
Mr. Ricardo, select at will from the rich soils w^hich then so 
much abound. 

Game becoming yearly more scarce, famines become more 
frequent and severe, and this necessitates change of place. 
That in its turn brings with it a necessity for dispossessing 
the fortunate owners of places where food can be more readily 
obtained. Deficiency of power over nature thus compels 
man everywhere to become the robber of his fellow-man. 
The history of the world, throughout, shows us the people of 
tlie high and poor lands — the early Germans, the Swiss, the 
Highlanders, and the people of Central Asia — plundering 
those whose peaceful habits had enabled them to accumulate 
wealth and to cultivate t'le more productive soils. 

In this eai'ly period, we see the strong men everywhere to 
have appropriated large bodies of land ; while men, wonjen, 
and children have been converted into property, reduced to 
slavery, and forced to work for masters who performed the 
part of traders — standing between those who produced and 
those who desired to consume, taking the entire product of 
the labor of the first, and giving to the last only what was 
al)solutely necessary for the support of life. The whole busi- 
ness of the great proprietor consisting in the prevention of 
any combination of effort amongst his slaves, the more per- 
fectly that object is attained, the larger is the proportion of 
the products retained by him, and the smaller that divided 
among those who labor for their production, and those who 
need to have them for their consumption. 



OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 113 

Trade thus commences with the traffic in bone and muscle, 
the trade in man. Tlie warrior buys liis commodities in the 
cheapest of all markets — burning villages at dead of night, 
and carrying off their poor inhabitants. Retaining for him- 
self as many as he pleases, he sells the rest to other traders, 
who, having bought in the cheapest market, now carry their 
property elsewhere, seeking to sell it in the dearest. 

At this period of society men are always found among 
the highlands of the interior, or on small rocky islands, like 
those of the Egean Sea. There being no roads, the little 
communication that exists is maintained by boats, for the 
iiianagement of which these islanders are early fitted ; and 
here it is that trade is first developed. There being, how- 
ever, equal facility for robbing and murdering the people of 
the coast, piracy and trade go hand in hand together. In 
time, however, as population increases, it is found more prof- 
itable to establish places at which exchanges must be made, 
and where contributions may more advantageously be levied 
on the exchangers : thus we see great cities arising on the 
sites of Tyre, Corinth, Palmyra, Venice, Genoa, and others, 
wdiose growth was due exclusively to trade. 

§ 4. The first necessity of man, as has been seen, is com- 
bination, or association, with his fellow-man, without which 
he is not the being to which we attach the idea of man. 
The warrior opposes obstacles to commerce by preventing all 
intercourse except that which passes through himself. The 
landed proprietor and slave-owner is the middle-man — the 
trader — who regulates the exchanges made by the peoi)le 
owned by him, with other persons, the propert}'' of his neigh- 
bors. The trader in merchandise opposes obstacles to all 
commerce carried on without his aid, desiring to have a 
monopoly, in order that the producer of food may obtain but 
liltle cloth, and the maker of cloth but little food, — his essen- 
tial principle being that of buying at the lowest price, and 
s<'lling at the highest. 

The words Commerce and Trade are commonly regarded 
as convertible terms, yet are the ideas they express most 
widely different. All men desire to combine with each otluu-, 
to exchange services and ideas — and thus to maintain Com- 
merce. Some men seek to perform exchanges /or others, and 
thus to maintain Trade. 

Commerce is tlie object everywhere sought to be accom- 
plished. Traffic is ///'- indrunynit u.sed by commerc" for ita 



114 CHAPTER VIII. § 4. 

accomplishment, and the greater the necessity for the instru- 
ment, the less is the power of those who need to use it. 
The nearer the producer and consumer, the less is the neces- 
sity for the trader's services, and the greater is the power to 
maintain commerce. The more distant they are, the greater 
is the trader's power and the need of his services, but the 
weaker become the producers and consumers, and the smaller 
is the commerce. 

The value of all commodities being the measure of the 
obstacles to their attainment, it must increase with every 
increase of these latter. The necessity for the trader's ser- 
vices being an obstacle in the way of commerce, every dim- 
inution of it tends to diminish the value of things, while 
increasing that of man. The tendency in that direction grows 
with the growth of wealth and population, commerce thus 
growing with the increase of its power over the instrument 
known as trade, precisely as we see in reference to roads, 
wagons, ships, and other instruments. The men who trade 
desire to prevent association and thus preclude the mainten- 
ance of commerce, and the more perfectly their object is 
accomplished, the larger is the proportion which they re- 
tain of the commodities which pass through their hands, 
and the smaller the proportion divided among those who 
labor to produce, and those who need to consume. 

In illustration of this we may take the post-office, an 
admirable machine for maintaining commerce in words and 
ideas, but quite useless to those who live in close proximity 
to each other. Separate these, and the machine becomes a 
necessity, with diminution of commerce. Bring them together 
again and the necessity disappears, with great increase of 
commerce, half an hour's conversation accomplishing more 
than can be done by half a year of correspondence. In the 
early pei'iods of society the trade in letters was a monopoly 
of governments, which dictated the terms on which commerce 
might be maintained ; but with the progress of population, 
the people of various countries have been enabled to diminish 
the power of the trader, and commerce has therefore very 
largely grown. Even now, the intercourse between America 
and Continental Europe is heavily taxed by Great Britain, 
which permits no letter to pass over its limited territory but 
at a cost nearly equal to that of transporting it across the 
Atlantic Ocean. 

Ships are not commerce, nor are wagons, sailors, letter- 
carriers, brokers, or commission merchants. The necessity 



OF TUE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 115 

for using tlieni is an obstacle to commerce which adds largely 
to the value of the commodities that are exchanged. That 
this is felt by all is proved by the fact, that every measure 
tending to the diversification of employment, or the improve- 
ment of communication, and consequently to the reduction 
of the power of the trader and transporter, is hailed as tending 
to improvement in the condition of each and every other 
portion of society. The laborer rejoices when the erection 
«.>f a furnace or the constvuction of a road brings to his door 
the demand for his services Tlie farmer rejoices in the 
0})ening of a market close at hand, giving him consumers for 
hid food. His land rejoices in the home consumption of its 
products, for its owner is thereljy enabled to return to it, in 
the form of manure, the refuse of its prodticts. The planter 
rejoices in the erection of a mill which gives him a market 
for his cotton and his food. The parent rejoices when a 
nuirket for the labor of his sons and daughters enables them 
to obtain readily the needed supplies of food and clothing. 
Every one rejoices in the growth of a home market, for 
commerce then increases surely and with great rapidit3^ 
Every one mourns the diminution of the home market, for 
commerce then becomes languid, land and labor diminish in 
value, consumption and production diminish, and laborer and 
liind-owner become poor together. 

Trade tending towards centralization, every stage of ad- 
vance in its power over producers and consumers is an 
approach to slavery and death. Commerce, on the contrary, 
tending towards the establishment of local centres of action, 
every movement in that direction is an approach to freedom 
and to further increase of activity and life. 

The movements of trade being, like those of war, greatly 
dependent on the will of individuals, are necessarily very 
spasmodic. Traders, collected in great cities, find it easy to 
combine together for depressing the prices of commodities 
they desire to obtain, and raising those of the things they 
h(jld, thus taxing both consumers and producers. Commerce, 
on the contrary, tends to produce that steadiness and regu- 
larity without which there can be no more durability in the 
societary machinery than there can be in that of the ill-con- 
structed watch, or engine. 

War acJ trade regard man as an instrument to be used, 
whereas commerce regards trade as the instrument to be used 
by man ; and therefore it is that man declines when the power 
of the warrior and trader "-rows, and ri.ses when it d(!clines. 



1J6 CHAPTER VIII. § 5. 

It is a well-known physical law, that with every diminu- 
tion in the machinery required for producing a given effect, 
there is a diminution of friction, and a consequent increase 
of power. The friction of commerce results from the neces- 
sity for the services of the trader, his ships, and his wagons. 
As that necessity has diminished, there has been everywhere 
observed a constantly accelerated tendency towards continu- 
ous motion among the various portions of society, with rapid 
increase of individuality, and of the power of further progress. 
What is the process by means of which society is formed we 
niay now examine. 

§ 5. In science, as the reader has already seen, it is the 
most abstract and general that is first developed, the con- 
crete and special following slowly in the rear. So is it too 
with the pursuits of man. To rob and murder our fellow- 
men, to seek glory by the destruction of towns, requires no 
scientific knowledge ; whereas agriculture calls for the aid 
of science. Trade, too, demands but little intellect. Tlie 
postman cares not whether the letter he delivers carries news 
3i births or deaths, of war or peace. To the dealer in cotton 
Oi sugar it matters little whether his commodities grow in 
ilro valleys or on the hills. To the slave-dealer, needing, as 
he does, only to know whether, having bought it cheaply he 
can sell it dearly, it is immaterial whether the chattel be male 
or female, parent or child. Trade is to commerce what 
mathematics are to science. Both are instruments to be 
used for the accomplishment of a purpose. 

The abstract mathematics deal simply with number and 
form ; whereas chemistry looks to the decomposition, and 
physiology to the recomposition, of bodies. Trade deals 
with bodies to be moved or exchanged ; whereas, commerce 
looks to the decomposition and recomposition of the various 
societary foi'ces resulting from the habit of association. 

In the early periods of society robbeiy and murder were 
deified under the names of Odin or of Mars. Alexander and 
Caesar, Tamerlane and Nadir Shah, Wallenstein and Napo- 
leon, were great because of the number of murders they had 
perpetrated, and of cities they had ruined. The "merchant 
princes" of Venice and Genoa were great because of large 
fortunes they had realized from dealing in slaves and other 
merchandise, doing nothing themselves but stand between the 
people who produced and those who consumed — thus adding 
largely to the value of the commodities that passed througli 



OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 117 

their hands, at the cost of all who were forced to contribute 
to the growth of their already enormous wealth. 

In this condition of society, the only qualities that com- 
mand respect are brute force and craft — the one represented 
by Ajax, the other by the wise Ulysses. The morals of war 
and trade are the same. The warrior glories in deceiving 
his antagonist ; while the trader purchases respect by a largo 
fortune acquired, perhaps, by selling to the poor African 
guns that explode at the first attempt to fire them, or cloth 
that falls to pieces on being washed. In both, the end is 
held to sanctify the means, the only test of right being found 
in success or failure. The pre-eminence of soldiers and 
traders may, therefore, be regai-ded as conclusive proof of 
barbaric tendencies. 

The mercenary soldier, obeying orders, is so far from 
holding himself responsible to God or man that he glories in 
the extent of his robberies, and the number of his murders. 
The savage adorns his person with the scalps of his enemies, 
while the more civilized murderer adds a ribbon to the dec- 
oration of his coat ; but both are savages alike. The sailor 
is among the most brutalized of human beings, being bound, 
like the soldier, to obey orders, uncfer penalty of application 
of the lash. The human machines used by war and trade 
are the only ones, except the negro slave, who are now 
liable to be flogged. 

The soldier desires labor to be cheap that recruits may 
readily be obtained; the great land-owner, that he may re- 
tain a larger proportion of the proceeds of his land ; and 
the trader, that he may dictate the terms on which he will 
buy as well as sell. 

The object of all being the same, that of obtaining power 
over their fellow-men, it afibrds no cause for surprise that we 
find the soldier and the trader uniformly helping each other. 
The bankers of Rome were as ready to furnish aid to Caesar, 
Pompey, and Augustus, as are now those of London, Paris, 
or Vienna, to grant it to the Emperurs of France, Austria, 
and Kussia; and as indifferent to the end for whose attain- 
ment it is to be applied. War and trade thus travel together, 
as is shown by the history of the world ; the only difference 
between wars for conquest, and those for the maintenance 
of the monopolies of trade, being that the virulence of the 
latter is by very much the greater. The conqueror is some- 
times moved by a desire to improve the condition of lug 
fellow-men ; but the trader has no other idea than that of 



118 CHAPTER Vm. § 1. 

buying in the cheapest market and selling in the clearest, 
cheapening merchandise even to the extent of starving the 
producers, and raising his prices, even to that of starving the 
consumers. 

§ 6. Closely connected with the movements of the trader 
are the labors given to e&ect'mg changes of place. In the 
early periods these are nearly limited to changing the places 
of the men held as slaves ; as is now the ease in many parts 
of Africa, and to some extent in our Southern States. By 
degrees the camel-driver, the wagoner, and the sailor, appear 
upon the scene, constituting an important portion of society 
because of the great effort required for moving a little mer- 
chandise. Here, again, we see that the earliest in develop- 
ment is that which makes least demand for knowledge. The 
wagoner cares not whether he carries cotton, rum, or prayer- 
books ; nor the sailor whether he brings gunpowder to the 
African, or clothing to the people of the Sandwich Isles. 
With the growth of population and of the habit of associa- 
tion, the necessity for transportation declines, while the 
facilities for it increase, the turnpike road and the railroad 
replacing the Indian path as the ship had done with the 
canoe ; and with every step in this direction there is a diminu- 
tion in the proportion of the population required to be so 
employed, and an increase in the proportion of the muscular 
and mental power that can be applied to increasing the 
quantity of things that may be carried. 

§ t. Next in order come mechanical and chemical changes 
of matter inform, moi-e concrete and special, and requiring a 
much higher degree of knowledge. 

A branch torn from a tree sufficed Cain for the murder of 
Abel; but it would have required some knowledge of the 
nature of the wood to make a bow or a canoe. The stone 
may be used as a w^eapon of defence, but it requires some 
knowledge to discover that it contains iron ; and still more, 
to convert that iron into spades. 

With this knowledge comes man's power over matter, — in 
other words, his wealth ; and with every increase of power 
he is more and more enabled to associate with his fellow-men 
for the protection of the rights of person and of property. 
Motion now becomes more rapid and continuous, and society 
tends to take upon itself a more natural' form, the proportion 
of those who live by appropriation declining, with increase 



OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 119 

in the proportion of those who live by the exertion of their 
physieal and intellectual faculties. Right tends now to tri- 
umph over might, with diminution in the proportion of labor 
required for self-defence, and increase in the proportion that 
may be devoted to obtaining power over nature ; and with 
every step in this direction the appreciation of the responsi- 
bility which attends the exercise of power tends steadily to 
increase. 

§ 8. Following the above in the order of development 
come the labors given to effecting vital changes in the J'ormit 
of matter, attended with an augmentation in the quantity of 
things J;o be converted, transported, or exchanged. 

The labor of the miller makes no change in the quantity 
of food, nor that of the spinner in the quantity of cotton, but 
to those of the farmer we owe an increase in the quantity of 
both. 

That power is limited to the earth alone. Man cannot, 
with all his science, fashion the elements by which he is sur- 
rounded into a grain of corn or a lock of wool. A part of 
his labor being given to fashioning the great machine itself, 
produces changes that are permanent. The limestone once 
reduced to lime, passes into the food of men and animals and 
ever after takes part in the same round with the clay with 
which it had been combined ; and the iron, rusting, passes 
into the soil to take its part with the lime and clay in the 
production of further supplies of food. 

The first poor cultivator obtains for his year's wages a 
hundred bushels, the pounding of which between two stones 
requires much labor, and yet is most imperfectly done. 
Were there a mill at hand, he would have better flour, and 
be able to bestow almost his whole time upon his land. He 
pulls up his grain : had he a sc3'the, he would have more 
time for the preparation of the great machine that alone can 
furnish grain. He loses his axe, and many days of travel 
are required before he can obtain another. His land loses 
the time and the manure which would have been saved had 
the axe-maker been near at hand. The advantage derived 
from the mill and the scythe consists simply in economizing 
labor, so as to enable him to devote his time to the great 
machine of production ; and such is the case with all the 
machinery of preparation and exchange. The plough en- 
abling him to do as much in one day as with a spade he 
could do in many, he has more time to give to drainuge. 



120 CHAPTER VIII. § 10. 

The steam-engine draining as much as without it would 
require thousands of days of labor, he has more leisure to 
marl, or lime, his land. Spades, ploughs, and engines, dis- 
appear in the act of being used ; the earth alone is the great 
labor-savings' bank, and the value of other things to man is 
in the direct ratio of their power to aid him in increasing his 
deposits in that only bank whose dividends are ever increas- 
ing, while its capital is ever augmenting in its amount. 
That it may continue for ever so to do, all that it asks is, that 
motion may be maintained by returning to it the refuse of 
its produce, the manure ; and for this it is needed that the 
producer and consumer take their places by each other's side. 
The great pursuit of man is agriculture. It is the science 
that requires the greatest variety of knowledge, and is there- 
fore the latest in development. It is, indeed, but now becom- 
ing a science, and that by aid of geological, chemical, and 
physiological knowledge, most of which is the result of the 
labors of the present day. It is the latest, too, because the 
most liable to be interfered with by the soldier and the trader, 
and therefore most requiring the establishment of that habit 
of order, and of respect for the rights of person and property, 
which always result from the growth of commerce. 

§ 9. Last in order of development comes commerce. Every 
act of association being an act of commerce, the latter in- 
creases as men are enabled to obtain larger supplies of food 
from smaller surfaces. While they cultivate the poor soils 
alone, and are forced to remain apart, commerce scarcely 
exists ; but when, with the progress of population, they are 
enabled to cultivate the rich soils, they have leisure for that 
improvement of their minds which, in turn, enables them to 
improve their modes of cultivation ; while diversity of em- 
ployment brings with it the power of association and the 
development of individuality, with greater feeling of respun- 
eibility, and constant acceleration in the rate of progress. 

§ 10. The human frame is composed of portions acting 
independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other. 
Each changes its constituent parts from day to day, the 
machine remaining still the same ; and the more rapid the 
assimilation of the food administered, the more healthful is 
the action of the whole, and the greater the tendency to 
stability and permanence. So, too, is it with the societary 
machine, its tendency to steadiness and durability being in 



P 12\ 




OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 121 

till' direct ratio of the rapidity of motion among its various 
juirt:^, or tile activity of comnierce. 

Tlie more natural the form, the more stable is the building. 
Discharge a load of earth, and it will assume nearly the form 
of a pyramid ; and with every increase in the quantity of mat- 
ter the base is seen to widen as the apex increases in its 
heigiit. The Andes have endured forever because they have 
the most natural of forms, that of a cone. How durable is 
that form is shown by the pyramids of Egypt, remaining 
after thousands of years almost as perfect as when they first 
were built. In the vegetable world we see that the tendency 
to durability is in the ratio of the depth and spread of the 
root, a^s compared with the height of the stem. The tree 
grown in a forest runij up in search of light and air, but 
having very little root it has little durability ; while those 
which have abundant light and air stand for centuries, as is 
the case with so many of the oaks of England. 

The greater the power of association, the more regular 
and rapid is the motion, the more perfect the development of 
the faculties, and the greater the tendency to sink deep the 
f(Mindations of society by developing the wondrous treasures 
of the earth. The more the various forces of water-power, 
of coal, iron, lead, and other minerals, are utilized, the greater 
is the tendency to the formation of local centres neutralizing 
the attraction of the capital ; with steady tendency towards 
decline of centralization, and with constant diminution in the 
proportion borne by soldiers, politicians, traders, and all 
others who live by appropriation, to the mass of which 
society is composed — society itself gradually assuming that 
form which most combines beauty, strength, and durability, 
that of a cone or pyramid. 

§ 11. A tree conforming in its structure to the conditions 
above described, let us take advantage of it to illustrate the 
subject. Let the stem be commerce, and the roots its sub- 
jects. In the earliest, or hunter, state, the business of man 
is simple appropriation, — fruits and wild animals being his 
prey. In this stage there is neither trade, manufactures, nor 
agriculture ; and the young plant, in parallel circumstances, 
Bhows but the topmost branches, and the slightly produced 
topmost roots. 

In the second era, property being somewhat recognized, 
trade arises, founded on it. Change of place being then 
effected by the rudest methods of transportation, the water 
11 



122 CHAPTER VIII. § 11. 

and air — root-branohes — are the natural forces then used, the 
uanoe and the sail-boat utilizing the rivers and the winds. 
Thus the sailor and the merchant, the land-carrier with his 
camel, ox, or horse, and perhaps his wag-on, constitute im- 
portant portions of the societarv system of this period. 

Next come manufactures, corresponding with the roots 
that are third in order, for among the earliest subjects that 
mark this epoch are the minerals and earths that are essential 
both as materials and implements. The precious metals, like 
wild fruits and animals found ready at once for use, are early 
employed for ornament ; but iron, the great civilizer, and 
coal, the great agent in its conversion, are among the latest 
triumphs of man over the mighty forces of nature. 

To the branch, manufactures, therefore, the metals and 
earths — root-branches — correspond in necessary relation, and 
in the date of their development. This being the stage of 
scientific progress, we see that, just as the cultivator of the 
rich soils returns to the poor ones with augmented means 
for developing their latent powers — so the science of the 
later period searches out the hidden elements of the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms, and the properties of liquid and elastic 
fluids, and places them under the control of man, thus adding 
largely to his force, and diminishing the resistance to further 
efforts. The water now yields steam ; the air is resolved 
into gases which furnish light and heat ; while the animal 
and vegetable worlds now yield, not merely food and medi- 
cines, but acids, alkalies, oils, gums, resins, drugs, dyes, per- 
fumes, hair, silk, wool, cotton, and leather, furnishing the 
conveniences and luxuries of life in a thousand forms. 

Last comes agriculture, embracing all the discoveries of 
the earlier ages. Appropriating the ready-formed elements 
of nature, it commands the aid of trade and transportation, 
while seizing on the chemical and mechanical forces furnished 
by the age of manufactures — thus covering all the progress 
of ages that had preceded. 

The secondary branches mark the successive production 
of the agencies of the several classes : thus, in the topmost 
branch, the hunter is followed by the soldier, the statesman, 
and the annuitant, all non-producers, growing from the same 
stem with the growth of civilization, but diminishing in their 
proportion as society becomes more developed. In the 
infant state, this top branch constituted the whole tree. 

The next branch, transportation, bears carriers and traders ; 
and with the growth of science, engineers ; but their propor- 



or THE rORMATION OF SOCIETY. 123 

tion to the mass of society declines as the powers of man 
become more developed. 

The third, consisting of chemical and mechanical chanpres 
of form, branches into mechanics, architects, miners, machin- 
ists, etc., and greatly overbalances the classes that live by 
appropriation, trade, and transportation. 

Lastly, we have agriculturists, branching into cattle- 
breeders, dairymen, gardeners, tillers, etc., to fulfil the grand 
underlying function of producers for all other laborers in the 
work of social commerce. 

The reader must carry with him, in the theory of the 
parallels here attempted, the recollection that the figure here- 
with pre.'^ented is capable of no more than contemporaneous 
presentment of the social distribution of the various functions. 
The topmost branches are, in point of fact, the last produced 
by its growth ; and the earliest are resolved, by change of 
form and increase of substance, into the lowest boughs of 
the perfected tree ; but the identity of the boughs is, in fact, 
as much lost in the limbs of the tree, as in the successive 
functionaries of the social state — the hunters of a race grow- 
ing, through their descendants, into transporters, manufac- 
turers, and scientific cultivators of the soil, successively, and 
by the process of civilizing development. The native Briton 
— having passed, by the process of generation and regenera- 
tion, successively into every form of man — now appears in 
the aristocracy of England ; but his correspondent, in Aus- 
tralia, is still a hunter and a savage. The rudest savage 
was, in his day, the topmost branch of the shrub, living upon 
plunder ; and not producing by his labor. The soldier of 
our own day is, like him, a privileged spoliator; while the 
politician lives by tribute, and the state annuitant derives his 
whole support from contributions levied upon all the classes 
who contribute to the growth of commerce. 

In relative position, therefore, the top branch is still in 
place ; and throughout all changes in the general system, it 
always has occupied, and always must occupy, a position 
corresponding to the relation borne by the appropriators of 
the race to the social toilers. 

§ 12. We have here observed that great mathematical law 
which requires that when several forces unite to produce any 
given result, each should be separateh^ examined. It is known 
that man tends to increase in numbers, and in power over 
nat»-e ; yet is it seen that there are communities in which 



124 CHAPTER VIII. § IB. 

numbers and wealth decrease, lands once populous having 
been entirely abandoned, or being now occupied ny but a few 
miserable and wretched individuals. Hence it has been 
hastily concluded, that it is the natural tendency of human 
society to pass through various forms of existence, ending iu 
physical and moral death. This, however, is not the case. 
Where societies do not become more prosperous from year 
to year, it is a consequence of disturbing causes, each of 
which must be sepai-ately studied, with a view to ascertain 
how far it has tended to produce the state of things which 
is observed. 

Having now completed the study of the physiology of 
society, we shall in our next chapter turn to its pathology, 
with a view to ascertain the causes of decline and death. 

§ 13. The theory of Mr. Ricardo in regard to the occupa- 
tion of the earth, leads to results directly the reverse of those 
we have described. Commencing cultivation on the richest 
soils, always the valleys, as men become more numerous 
they must disperse themselves, climbing the hills, or seeking 
elsewhere valleys as yet unappropriated. Dispersion, bring- 
ing with it an increased necessity for the services of the 
soldier, the sailor, and the trader, produces a constant increase 
in the importance of the classes that live by appropriation. 
Centralization grows as association declines, and men become 
from year to year more the slaves of nature and of their fel- 
low-men ; and this, as we are told, in virtue of a great law 
instituted by the Creator for the government of mankind. 

Were this so, society would assume the form of an inverted 
pyramid, every increase in numbers and wealth being marked 
by an increasing instability and corresponding decline in the 
condition of men. " Order," however, being "Heaven's first 
law," the mere fact that this one would be productive of such 
disorder would seem to be sufficient reason for instantly re- 
jecting it. So, too, with that of Mr. Malthus, which leads 
inevitably to the subjection of the many to the will of tht 
few, to centralization and slavery. No such law can pos- 
sibly exist. The Creator established none in virtue of which 
matter must take upon itself the highest form, that of man, 
ia a ratio more rapid than those lower ones of potatoes or 
turnips, herrings or oysters, required for his sustenance. 
The great Architect of the universe was no blunderer, such 
as modern political economy would make Him. All-wise, 
Ite has not established different sets of laws for the goveri 



OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY 125 

nient of tlie same matter. All-just, He was ineap;ible of in- 
gtitutinf^ any that would justify tyranny and oppression. 
All-merciful, He could make none that would afford a war- 
rant for want of mercy among men towards their fellow-men, 
such as is now daih' exhibited in books of high authority.* 

Speaking of the Ricardo theory, an eminent writer assures 
his readers that this " general law of agricultural industry is 
the most important proposition in political economy;" and 
that " were the law different nearly all the phenomena of the 
production and consumption of wealth would be other than 
they ai'e." Rather, other than they have been described by 
political economists to be, but not other than they really are. 
The law is different, and produces totally different results. 
'J'he supposititious one leads to the glorification of trade, of all 
the pursuits of man the one that tends least to the develop- 
ment of intellect, and most towards hardening of the heart 
to the sufferings of his fellow-men ; while the real one 
finds its highest point in the development of that commerce 
of man with his fellow-man which tends most to his advance- 
ment as a moral and intellectual being, and most to th« 
establishment of the feeling of responsibility to his Creator 
for the use he makes of the faculties with which he has been 
endowed, and the wealth he is permitted to obtain. The one 
is unchristian in all its parts ; while the other is in every line 
in strict accordance with the great law of Christianity 
teaching that we should do to others as we would they 
should do unto us, and with the feeling that prompts the 
prayer — 

" That mercy I to others show 
That mercy show to me." 

* Labor is, as we are told hy English economists, " a commodity ;" 
atid if men will, by marrying, indulge the natural desire wliicli 
prompts them to seek association with their kind, and will bring 
up cliildren "to an overstocked and expiring trade," it is for thein 
to take the consequences ; and " if we stund between the error and its 
consequences, we stand between t'le evil and its cure — if we intercept the 
penalty, (where it does not amount to positive death.) we perpet- 
uate the sin." (Edinburgh Review, October, 1849. The italics are 
those of the reviewer.) It would be difficult to find stronger evi- 
dence of the tendency of an unsound political economy to cru.sh 
out all Christian feeling, than is contained in the above passage. 



126 CHAPTER IX. § 1. 

CHAPTER IX. 

OP APPROPRIATION. 

^ 1. War and trade the characteristics of the early periods of soriety. Necessity foi th« 

services of the waiTior and the trader diminishes with the growth of wealth and 

population. 
I 2. Close connection between war and trade visible in every page of history. Their 

centralizing tendencies. Their power diminishes with the growth of commerce, 
g 3. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Attica, 
g 4. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Sparta. 
^ 5. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Carthage. 
^ 6. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Rome. 
I 7. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. 
§ 8. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Holland. 
g 9. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Portugal, 
g 10. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Spain, 
g 11. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of France. 
1 12. The higher the organization of society, the greater is its vigor, and the better its 

prospect of life. The more numerous the differences, the higher is the organization, and 

the greater the commerce. Increase in the proportions of soldiers and traders tends 

towards centralization, and moral, physical, and jwlitical death, 
g 13. Modern political economists teach the reverse of this. Errors resulting from using 

the same words, to express ideas that are wholly different. 

§ 1. War and Trade being, as has been shown, the 
characteristics of the early periods of society, their close 
connection is shown at almost every step of societary life 
that has thus far been recorded. History, indeed, may with 
perfect truth be said to be little else than a record of the 
efforts of the few to tax the many, and of the many to escape 
taxation. 

The Ishmaelites, whose hand was against every man, while 
every man's hand was against them, were extensive dealers 
in slaves and other merchandise. The Phoenicians, free- 
booters at one time, traders at another, were always readj 
for any measures tending towards enabling them to maintain 
tlie monopolies of trade they had established. Homer pre- 
sents Menelaus boasting of the plunder he had acquired by 
means of piracy, and the wise Ulysses as feeling his honor 
untouched by the inquiry whether he came as trader or as 
pirate. The Norwegian sea-kings are seen alternately en- 
gaged in " gathering property," as robbery was then naively 
termed, or in trading from one kingdom to another, both pur- 
suits being held in equally high esteem. The same con- 
nection is seen in the histories of Hawkins, Drake, and 
Cavendish ; in those of the African slave trade, apd the West 



OF APPROPRIATION. 127 

Indian Buccaneers; in tlie French and Ent>lish wars on this 
continent, in the West Indies, and in India ; in the closing 
of the Scheldt ; in the wars of Spain and Engiand ; in the 
j)aper blockades of the wars of the French Revolution ; in 
the occupation of Gibraltar as a smuggling depot ; in the late 
wars in India, especially the last with Burniah, begun about 
a trader's claim of a few hundred pounds ; in the opium war 
in China; in the manner in which Indian wars are gotten 
up in this country ; in our own recent warlike demonstration 
against Japan, made with a view to compel that country to 
accept the blessings that were to follow in the wake of trade, 
and which now exhibit themselves in the forms of civil and 
foreign wars ; in the proceedings of France in the Sandwich 
and Marquesas Islands ; and last, though not least, in the 
application of British capital and British skill to the fitting 
out of pirate ships, to be manned by British seamen, and 
emplo3'ed in driving from the ocean the stars and stripes 
under which the people of these United States have thus far 
so successfully competed with those of Britain for the carry^ 
ing trade of the world at large. 

War and trade tend towards centralization. The support 
of soldiers and sailors produces a necessity for taxation, the 
. proceeds of which must seek a central point before they can 
be distributed, and the distribution collects together hosts of 
men anxious to secure their share of plunder, as was the ca.^e 
in Athens and in Rome, and as it now is in Paris, London, 
New York, and Washington. Under their reign, the city 
becomes from year to year a better place for trading in 
merchandise or in principles, while rapidly increasing cen- 
tralization destroys the attraction of local centres. 

The greater the power of association, and the more perfect 
the development of the individual powers of each member of 
society, the more do warriors, politicians, and traders, tend 
to occupy their proper place, that of instruments to be used 
by society ; and the greater the durability of the society, as 
well as its power to repel invasions of its rights. Whatever 
diminishes the power of association tends io make society the 
instruments of these vien ; centralization, slavery, and death 
always traveling hand in hand together. 

The policy of Athens, Rome, and other communities, 
having tended in this latter direction, a state of things was 
brought about which gave rise to the idea that societies, like 
trees and men, had their various stages of growth and 
decline, ending naturally in death. To determine how far 



128 CHAPTER IX. § 3. 

this is so, we may now briefly examine the course of action 
of some of the leading communities of the world. 

§ 3. The people of Attica, at an early period divided into 
small communities, becj^e united under Theseus, with 
Athens for their capital. The Boeotians, in like manner, 
associated themselves with Thebes, and the little States of 
Phocis followed their example ; while the tendency to gen- 
eral combination is seen in the institution of the Amphyc- 
tionic league and the Olympic and other games. 

For a long period the history of Athens is almost a blank, 
because of its peaceful progress. Peace brought with it 
such a steady growth, that long prior to the days of Solon 
mechanics and artisans constituted an affluent and intelligent 
body, while throughout the State labor and skill were given 
to developing the various treasures of the earth ; and the 
habit of association thus produced developed that individu- 
ality to which Athens has since stood indebted for the prom- 
inent place she has occupied in the pages of history. 

Under the legislation of Solon, the whole body of citizens 
had the right of voting in the popular assemblies, but all 
were not equally eligible to office. All, however, were not 
equally taxed for the maintenance of government, the heaviest 
contributions having been required from the first class, eligible 
to the highest offices, and their amount diminishing down- 
wards till they disappeared at the fourth, which was exempt 
from taxation as it was excluded from the magistracy ; and 
here we find the most equal apportionment of rights and 
duties exhibited in the history of the world. Elsewhere, the 
few have taxed the aiany for their support, while monopoliz- 
ing the offices ; while here, the few who had a right to claim 
*he offices paid the taxes. 

Towards the close of the century succeeding this organi- 
sation, we find Attica divided into a hundred townships, each 
having its own local assembly and magistracy ; a system 
more perfectly in accordance with the laws of the universe 
than any the world had seen before the settlement of the 
provinces now constituting these United States. 

With the Persian invasion there came, however, a total 
change. The country had been wasted and population had 
diminished ; and henceforth we see the Athenians passing 
from the condition of a peaceful democracy in which every 
man was engaged at home in combining his efforts with those 
of his fellow-citizens, to that of a warlike aristocracy, engaged 



OF APPROPRIATION. 120 

In preventing association abroad, and using their power so 
tc do as a means of self-enriclinieflt. Having accumulated 
fortunes by extortion, Themistocles and Cimon could secure 
the services of thousands of poor dependants. Poverty pro- 
ducing a thirst for plunder, it was easy to fill the army and 
man the ships which were employed in subjecting states and 
cities hitherto regarded as equals and allies. Athens having 
now become mistress of the seas, "upon her will," said 
Xenophon, " depended the exportation of the surplus produce 
of all nations;" and to enable her to exercise that will, we 
see her compelling the allies to compound for personal service 
by money payments, by help of which nearly the whole of 
the Athenian people were maintained in the public service. 
War having become her trade her armies are now largely 
increased, and for their maintenance and support she first 
seizes on the public treasury, then requires the allies to pay 
to her taxes on all the goods exported or imported. Next, 
declaring herself the court of final resort in all criminal, and 
nearly all civil, cases, her people become converted into 
judges, ready to sell their awards to the highest bidder, and 
States are now obliged to purchase protection by means of 
agents employed to distribute bribes among the citizens. 

The many become impoverished, while the few are thus 
enriched. Temples are erected, and theatres maintained at 
the public cost. The right thus to live by the labors of 
others being, however, regarded as a privilege to be limited 
to the few, and inquiry being made into the right of citizen- 
ship, no less than five thousand persons are rejected, and sold 
as slaves. With every increase of splendor we find an in- 
crease of indigence, and a necessity for exporting men to 
distant colonies, there to exercise over previous settlers the 
same power which the rich now exercise at home. The 
people, all fully occupied in the management of public 
affairs, are paid out of the public purse ; and so great has 
become the general poverty that an obolus (about three 
cents) is regarded as compensation for a day's service in the 
courts. 

Tyranny and rapacity next give rise to the Peloponnesian 
war, at the close of which Attica passes under the dominion 
of the Thirty Tyrants. Taxation grows, industry declines, 
and man becomes (to use a modern phrase) superabundant. 
Licentiousness becoming universal, military command is 
sought as the only road to fortune. New oppressions pro- 
ducing the Social War, towns are everywhere plundered, and 



130 CHAPTER IX. § 5. 

thus on and on may we trace the people of Attica exhausting 
themselves in the effort to impede the movement of others, 
until they become mere instruments in the hands of Mace- 
donian monarchs. Thence we find them passing under the 
sway of Roman proconsuls, and Herodes Atticus becoming 
almost sole owner of a land which, in happier days, had given 
support and prosperity to hundreds of thousands of indus- 
trious and prosperous freemen. 

§ 4. The institutions of Spai'ta having been based upon 
the idea of preventing voluntary association, she never passed 
beyond the cultivation of the poorer soils. Man was there 
regarded but as an instrument, forming a part of an imaginary 
being called The State, to whom all his feelings and affections 
must be sacrificed. The Jwme had no existence, for not only 
were parents deprived of the society of their children, and of 
all control over their education, but they themselves miglit 
not even eat in private. Her people could neither buy nor 
sell, nor profit in any manner of the services of the precious 
metals. They might not study the sciences, and from music, 
as well as from all theatrical amusements, they were entirely 
debarred. The system thus preventing the development of 
individual faculties, wealth could not grow, nor could the 
people advance beyond the rudest pursuits, those looking to 
the appropriation of the property of others ; and therefore it 
was, that while always engaged in war, they were ever ready 
to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Poor and rapacious, 
perfidious and tyrannical, Sparta exhibits in her history but a 
picture of growing inequality and constantly retarded motion, 
until her soil passes into the hands of a few proprietors ; and 
she leaves, as her sole bequest to posterity, the record of her 
avarice and her crimes. 

§ 5. The history of Carthage is little more than the record 
of wars made for the purpose of securing the monopoly of 
trade. Her colonies being allowed no communication with 
the world except through the ships and merchants of the 
mother country, the system under which they suffered was 
supported by their contributions. Monopolies filled the 
treasury, and the disposal of the revenue gave power to a 
trading aristocracy ever ready to subsidize barbarian armies. 
The city grew in splendor, but the day of trial showed that 
the foundation of the social edifice was weak and rotten, and 
Carthage then passed from existence, thus supplying furtlici 



d 



OF APPROPRIATION. 131 

proof of the truth that " they who live by the sword must die 
by the sword." 

§ 6. In the days of Nuaia and of Servius the Campagna 
of' Rome was filled with cities, each constituting; a local 
centre to the people of the surrounding country. From the 
days of the Tarquins, however, we find a change ; and hence- 
forward we see her energies to have been devoted to appro- 
priating the property of Tier neighbors, and centralizing power 
within the Roman walls. The city grew in splendur ; but 
the condition of the people declined, until at length we fiiul 
them reduced to pauperism and dependent on daily distribu- 
tions of bread, the contributions of distant provinces taxed 
for their support ; and thus is Roman history but a repetition, 
on a grander scale, of that of Athens. Palaces multiply, but 
the land that formerly supported thousands of small propri- 
etors is abandoned, or is tilled by slaves. Panem et circenses, ^ 
free bread and free exhibitions of gladiatorial shows, now con- 
stitute the sole bill of rights of the degraded populace. 
Depopulation and poverty spread from Italy to the utmost 
bounds of the empire ; which at length passes away, after 
having existed almost a thousand yenrs, a model of rapacity 
and fraud, and having scarcely produced a dozen men whose 
names have descended to posterity with untarnished fame. 

Traders, gladiators, and buffoons were classed together by 
the Romans, yet their history is but a record of traders' 
operations. For centuries we see a perpetual war between 
plebeian debtors and their patrician creditors, proprietors 
of private dungeons. Later, we find the knights acting 
as middlemen, purchasing the right of taxation, paying to 
the receiver the smallest sum and collecting from the 
tax-payer the largest one. Scipio plundered the public 
treasury, and when asked for his accounts adjourned the 
meeting to the temple, there to return thanks to the gods for 
victories by which he had been enriched. Yerrcs, in Sicily, 
and Fonteius, in Gaul, were but traders. Brutus lent mom-y 
at 4 per cent, per month ; and all dealt in slaves, whom they 
treated in a manner that was vvortli\' only of barl)arians. 

§ 7. Venetian history presents to view a perpetual series 
of wars for trade, accompanied by increasing centralization 
of power — the government, originally democratic, becoming 
from age to age more aristocratic, until it centred in the 
Council of Ten, whose spies penetrated every liouse, and 



132 CHAPTER IX. § 10. 

whose tortures could reach every individual however . I<?vated. 
Taxing her colonies so as to pi'oduce constant attempts at 
revolution, requiring- great fleets and armies for their sup- 
pression, her whole history is one of increasing monopoly of 
trade and centralization of power, as a consequence of which 
she struck no roots into the earth ; and when the day of 
trial came, she fell, almost without a blow. 

The histories of Genoa and Pisa are likewise but a succes- 
sion of wars for the monopoly of trade ; and the power thus 
acquired proved as fleeting as had been that of Athens. 

§ 8. The early history of Holland exhibits a people among 
whom the habit of association and the development of in- 
dividuality grew with great rapidity ; but her later one is 
distinguished among those of modern Europe for the desire 
to monopolize trade, for the resistance it provoked from 
France and England, for the wars thereby brought about, 
•and for the exhaustion thus produced. The land that once 
gave to 'the world such men as Erasmus, Spinoza, John de 
Witt, and William of Orange, now exercises not the smallest 
influence in the world of literature or science, and but little 
even in that of trade. 

§ 9. In the history of Portugal we have striking evidence 
of the weakness of communities dependent chiefly upon trade. 
The close of the fifteenth century witnessed the passage of 
the Cape of Good Hope, and the establishment of Portuguese 
power in India, where wars were fomented in the hope of 
thereby promoting trade. Lisbon growing by the help of 
these monopolies, rose to a high place among European 
cities ; but here, as elsewhere, the strength of the community 
declined as the capital grew in splendor, and before the lapse 
of another century Portugal became a province of Spain. 

§ 10. In Spain we see anarchy attaining the highest point 
shortly previous to the discovery of this western continent 
in 1492. The country was filled with castles, mere dens of 
robbers, from which the nobles sallied forth to plunder trav- 
elers, whose spoil they disposed of publicly in the cities, 
while its late owners were sold to the Moors for slaves. 
Rival nobles carried on private wars even in the cities,' 
attacking churches, and burning dwellings by thousands. 
Instead of five royal mints, there were a hundred and fifty 
private ones, and the coin became so debased that the com- 



OF APPROPRIATION. 133 

moil articles of life were more than sixfold enhanced in price. 
Fiiniine and pestilence were frequent, and the people were 
reduced to a state of poverty and wretchedness. 

With the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand 
and Isabella, we see a change ; castles being everywhere 
destroyed, the country cleared of the banditti, and security 
of person and property established. Turning their attention 
to the revival of commerce, the sovereigns now remove 
internal restrictions, construct roads, bridges, qua3's and 
lighthouses, deepen harbors, and invite foreigners to the 
Spanish ports. Coinage is once again limited to the royal 
mints, numerous monopolies are abolished, and the alcavala, 
a tax on exchanges, previously arbitrary, is now limited to 
ten per cent. 

The habit of association growing rapidly, the mercantile 
marine, at the close of the century, amounted to a thousand 
vessels. The w^oollen and silk fabrics of Toledo employed 
a thousand workmen ; Segovia manufactured fine cloths ; 
Grenada and Valencia produced silks and velvets ; Yalladolid 
became distinguished for its cutlery and plate, while the 
manufactures of Barcelona rivalled those of Venice. The fair 
of Medina del Campo became the great mart for the ex- 
changes of the peninsula, and the quays of Seville were 
thronged with merchants from the remotest parts of Europe. 
The impulse thus given awakening mind, ancient seminaries 
were remodelled and new ones created, all swarming with 
disciples and employing more printing-presses than existed at 
a very recent date. 

Union at home, however, gave power to sovereigns who, 
most unhappily, desired to use it for the destruction of asso- 
ciation abroad, and for centralizing in their own hands the 
modes of action and thought of all their subjects. Millions 
of the most industrious people in the kingdom were expelled 
for diflferenee of belief, and thus was the societary motion 
seriously arrested. That, in turn, facilitated the gathering 
together of armies to be employed in Italy and the Nether- 
lands, Peru and Mexico ; until in the effort to destroy self- 
government abroad, Spain lost all individuality at home. 
Mistress of the Indies, and yet unable to preserve her own 
Gibraltar, she has for a century been forced to see it held for 
the sole purpose of enabling foreigners to set at naught her 
laws. In every page of her history we find further confirma- 
tion of the lesson : That if we desire to command respect for 
our own rights, we must respect those of our neighbors. 
12 



I'di CIIxiPTER IX. § 11. 

§ 11. For more than a thousand years France has been 
engaged in the effort to destroy the power of association 
among the various nations of the world ; as is shown in the 
histories of the Netherlands and Germany, Spain and Italy, 
India and Egypt. Her study has been to increa.se the 
machinery of trade, and destroy the power to maintain com- 
merce. Swords have abounded, while spades were rare ; 
ships of war have been numerous, while roads were bad, and 
canals unknown. Camps have grown as villages decayed, 
and gentlemen have become numerous as ploughmen have 
disappeared. 

Pepin and Charlemagne sought glory in Italy and Germany, 
leaving to their successors a kingdom incapable of defence 
against a few Norman pirates, and whose kings were unable 
to repress the robber chiefs by whom they were surrounded. 
The social system relapsed into a state of anarchy to which 
historians have given the pompous title of "The Feudal 
System." 

Population and wealth grew, however, slowly, and with 
them came a gradual approach towards the re-establishraent 
of a central power, round which society might regularly 
revolve ; but accompanied, as in Spain, by a desire to use 
the power thus acquired in preventing any development of 
societary motion abroad. Louis IX. squandered the wealth 
of his kingdom in the East : his successors invaded the terri- 
tories of their neighbors in the West, plundering their towns 
and murdering the inhabitants. This constant pursuit of 
glory, however, causing weakness at home, English armies 
repeated on the soil of Fi'ance the scenes of devastation the 
latter had herself enacted abroad, occupying her capital, and 
dictating laws to her people. 

Under Louis XI. we witness a near approach towards the 
re-organization of society, followed, however, by repeated 
invasions of the neighboring countries, and ending in the 
state of chaos exhibited in the closing reigns of the House of 
Valois, when foreign armies invaded France and the kingly 
power almost entirely disappeared. 

Once again society revived under Henry lY., but accom- 
panied, as before, by the desire to injure the communities 
around. Centralization grew with the growth, of armies, and 
the exiiaustion of the people increased with the splendor of 
the throne ; but here again we see weakness accompanying 
splendor, the closing years of Louis XIV. being embittered 
by the necessity of begging a peace the terms of which were 
to be diclated bv Marlboroui^h und Piiiicc Eiiircne. 



OF APrROVRIATION. 135 

The wars of Louis XY. and XYI. paved the way for the 
Uovolution ; when the descendant of the founder of Versailles 
was seen paving forfeit with his head for the previous splen- 
dor of the throne. Order once more established, we see the 
whole energies of the country turned to the destruction of 
association among the nations of Europe. Again were Spain 
and Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, desolated by invad- 
ing armies; and again did France exhibit a corresponding 
weakness at home, her capital being' occupied by foreign 
armies, and her thi'one filled by direction of foreign sovereigns. 

Order again restored, we see France for twenty years en- 
gaged in destroying life and property in Northern Africa. 
Louis Philippe thus centralized power in Paris, while destroy- 
ing it in the provinces; and when the day of trial came, he. 
too, fell, and without a blow. Again, we see the pre.'sent 
emperor engaged in the work of centralization, diminishing 
the power of association at home, and seeking to do the 
same abroad ; and enlarging fleets and armies, while denying 
to the people the right to discuss his measures. Such being 
the case it may well be doubted if the dynasty he desires to 
establish can be permanently maintained. 

In no country has the connection between war and trade 
been more fully exliibited. Its sovereigns have always l)een 
traders, buying the precious metals at low prices, and selling 
them at high ones, until the pound of silver degenerated to 
iha franc : selling offices to their subjects to divide with them 
the taxation of the people; and selling to that peo})le the 
privilege to employ themselves in the useful pursuits of life. 

§ 12. Resistance to gravitation, whether in the vegetable 
or animal world, is in the direct ratio of organization. So is 
it with human societies ; their chance of life increasing as 
they become more highly organized. 

Every increase in the propo?-lion of society engaged in war 
and trade tends towards centralization and slavery, it being 
the result of declining individuality, and diminished power of 
voluntary association. Every diminution of that proportion 
tends towards decentralization, life, and freedom, it being a 
consequence of higher development of individuality, increased 
])ower of association, and greater perfection of the societary 
organization. 

The power of association is in the ratio of the observance 
of that great law of Christianity which teaches respect for 
the rights of our fellow-men ; and as strength gro)i'S with the 



136 CHAPTER IX. § 13. 

g:rowtli of association, it follows that the nation which would 
increase in strength should carry into the management of 
public affairs the same system of morals recognized as bind- 
ing on individual men. 

§ 13. The Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine having been in- 
vented to account by means of laws instituted by the Creator 
for the existence of social disease, it is not surprising that 
modern political ec(3nomy looks upon the soldier and thu 
trader in a different light from that in which they have beeh 
here presented. M. Bastiat informs us that it is one of 
the errors of modern socialism to class amongst the parasitic 
races, the middlemen, such as the broker and the merchant ; 
who, as creators of value, ought, he thinks, to rank with 
agriculturists and manufacturers. Now, it is quite true that 
the middleman is "a creator of values;" but it is for that 
reason that men always rejoice in finding themselves enabled 
to dispense with his services. Yalue being the measure of 
nature's power over man, whatever increases it diminishes 
tile value of man.- The trader is a necessity, not a poiver ; 
and the more that men come together to arrange their affairs 
for themselves, thus dispensing with brokers, traders, police- 
men, soldiers and magistrates, the greater must be the strength 
and durability of the societary organization. 

The word commerce is constantly used to express ideas 
that are totally different. The man who makes shoes for a 
thousand people, each of whom comes to him to be fitted, 
pays neither porters nor commission merchants. His neigh- 
bor, whose customers are distant, pays a porter to carry them 
to the trader, and then pays the trader for finding persons to 
buy them. Here are three distinct operations : that of the 
trader, who simply arranges the terms of exchange, appro- 
priating part of the proceeds as compensation for his services ; 
that of the porter, who effects changes of place, and must 
likewise be paid out of the proceeds ; and that of the shoe- 
maker, who effects changes of form, and whose reward 
depends entirely on the quantity remaining after the others 
have been paid. All these operations it is the habit to 
include under the general head of commerce ; whereas, the 
real parties to the commerce are only the man who makes 
the shoes and those who wear them. The others are useful 
in so far as they are necessary; but whatever diminishes 
the need of their services is as much a gain to man, as is 
improvement in machinery of any other description whai- 
'soever. 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 137 

CHAPTER X. 

OF CHANGES OP MATTER IN rLACE, 

I 1. DilBculty. in the early period of society, of effecting changes in tne place of matter 
The necessity fjr so duing, the chief obstacle to commerce. Decline in the proportion 
of the society requued for effecting such changes. Accompanied by rapid gi-owth of 
commerce, and corresponding growth of power to obtain better means of trana- 
p..itation. 

i 2. The more perfect the commerce among men, the greater the tendency towards 
lemoval of the remaining obstacles to association. Man's progress, in whatsoever 
direction, one i^ constant acceleration. 

1 3. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor that of transportation. Tho 
firmer, near to maiket, always making a machine : the one distant therefrom always 
destroying one. 

2 4. Matnire, the commodity most needed by man, and the one that least bears trans- 

portation. The less the quantity of labor given to effecting changes of place, the 
greater that which may be given to production. Power to maintiiiu commerce grows 
with this change of proportions. 
^ 5. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of association. That power grows, with 
every diminution of the necessity for effecting changes of place. 

§ 1. The first poor colonist, unable to raise logs with which 
to build a house, is forced to seek shelter in a cave. Com- 
pelled to wander far in quest of food, he is often obliged to 
waste it for want of means of transport. As his sons grow 
up, however, they combine their exertions and make in^4tru- 
ments by help of which they bring together logs, and build 
themselves a hut. Again, they construct other instruments 
by aid of which they obtain more food from smaller surfaces, 
and thus lessen the labor required for effecting chamjes 
of place. 

The life of man is a contest with nature. His prime neces- 
sity is that of association with his fellow-man. The first 
settler, forced to cultivate the poor soils which yield but 
little food, must, of necessity, remain apart from other men. 
With increase of numbers he cultivates the richer soils, with 
constant increase in his powers of combination with other.^ 
like himself. From a creature of necessity he thus passes 
into a being of power, from year to year more" able to main- 
tain commerce with distant men, while less dependent on 
that commerce for the conveniences, comforts, and lu.xurics 
of life. The powers of nature become embodied in the man, 
whose value grows as that of all commodities declines. 

The solitary settler of the West, though provided with a.xe 
and spade, vvith difficulty constructs the poorest hut A 
neighbor arrives, possessing a horse and cart ; and now a 



138 CHAPTER X. § 2. 

better dwelling can be built with half the labor that had been 
at first required. Others coming, a third is still more readily 
completed. The new-comers having brought with them 
ploughs and hoes, better soils can now be cultivated, with 
large increase in the return to labor. 

The Indian path becomes a road, and a store is soon 
established. The settlement grows into a little town ; and 
with each addition to its numbers the farmer finds a new 
consumer for his products, and a new producer ready to 
supply his wants, the blacksmith and the shoemaker coming 
to eat on the spot the corn he has hitherto carried to the 
distant market. 

The little community has thus far occupied only the higher 
lands. Roads being now made through the bottom lands, 
richer soils are brought into cultivation, and the new wealth 
takes the form of a bridge, which enables them to exchange 
services with another small community on the opposite 
bank of the little stream. Employments become more diver- 
sified as exchanges increase ; the societies grow in strength, 
and forests are cleared, giving to cultivation the richest soils, 
with increasing returns to labor less severe, and correspond- 
ing facility of combination for every useful purpose. 

We here witness a constantly accelerating motion of society 
and an increase of commerce resulting from a diminution in 
the labor required for effecting changes of place. The power 
to 'maintain commerce groves thus with every diminution of 
the necessity for trade and transportation. 

§ 2. In the early stages of society the obstacles to inter- 
course are almost insuperable ; hence we see, even now, that 
while the value of commodities at the place of consumption 
is, in many cases, so great as to put them out of the reach of 
any but the wealthy, it is so small at the place of production 
as to keep 'the producer in a state of poverty and slavery. 
The sugar producer of Brazil cannot obtain clothing, while 
the cloth producer of England cannot obtain sufficient sugar 
for his family and himself. Both would have sufficient food 
and clothing could the one obtain all the cloth given for his 
sugar, the other all the sugar given for his cloth. It is 
because so large a portion is absorbed on its way from one to 
the other that both are so much enslaved. 

Thirty years since, the price of wheat in Ohio was less 
than one-third of what it would sell for on the Atlantic 
coast, the difference being then absorbed in the passage from 



UF CHANGES OF MATTER IX PLACE. l-'iP 

*he product;!' to the consumor. But recent]}-, corn abounded 
in Castile while Andalusia looked to America for food. 
Food is wasted in one part of India, while men perish of 
famine in another. So it is ever^wliere, in default of that 
diversity of employment which makes a market on the land 
for all its products. In purely ajrricultural countries the 
crops are almost altogether absorbed in the cost of transpor- 
tation, because of the exceeding distance of the consumer 
from the producer. Hence it is that slavery, or serfage, still 
])revails in those communities in which emplo\'ments are not 
diversified. 

§ 3. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and 
labor is that of transportalion. It increases in geometrical 
proportion as the distance from market increases arilhmeli- 
cally ; so that corn which would produce at market $25 per 
ton, is worth nothing at a distance of only 120 miles, if 
carried on the ordinar}' wagon road, the cost of transporta- 
tion being equal to the selling price. By railroad, the cost 
is about one-tenth of this, or $2 oO, leaving nine-tenths as the 
amount of tax saved by the construction of the road. Taking 
the product of an acre at an average of only a ton, the saving 
is equal to interest, at six per cent, on $375 an acre. If the 
product of an acre of wheat be twenty bushels, the saving is 
equal to the interest on $200 ; but if we take the more bulky 
products, — hay, potatoes, and turnips, — it amounts to thrice 
that sum. Hence it is, that an acre of land near London sells 
for thousands of dollars, while one of equal quality in Iowa 
or \Yisconsin may be purchased for little more than a single 
dollar. The owner of the first can take from it several crops 
in the year, returning a quantity of nianure equal to all he 
had extracted, and thus improving his land from year to 
year. He is making a food-producing machine ; whereas, his 
western competitor, forced to lose the manure, is destroying 
one. Having no transportation to pay, the former can raise 
those things of which the earth yields largely, — as potatoes 
and turnips, — or those whose delicate character forbids that 
they should be carried to distant markets ; and thus the 
power of combination with his fellow-men enables him to 
obtain large reward for service. The latter, being heavily 
taxed for transportation, cannot raise turnips, potatoes, or 
hay, of which the earth yields by tons, because they would 
Ite absorbed on the way to market. He may raise wheat, of 
which the earth yields by l)uslu'ls ; or cotton, of which it 



140 CHAPTER X. § 4. 

yields by pounds ; but if he raises even Indian corn, ine must 
manufacture it into pork before it will bear the cost of trans- 
portation. Much of his land lies fallow, while the cost of 
maintaining the fences and roads is as great as if it were 
producing crops. A great part, too, of his time and that of 
his horses, is unemployed, while they must still be fed. His 
harvests, too, may fail. The farmer near London is in the 
condition of an underwriter, who has a thousand risks, some 
of which are maturing every day ; whereas the distant one 
is like a man w^ho has risked his \vhole fortune on a single 
ship. When close to her destined port, she may strike on a 
rock, and be lost, her owner thus being ruined. So a farmer 
who has risked his all on a single crop, may see it destroyed 
by blight or mildew almost at harvest time. 

But still more important is the difference in the power of 
maintaining the productiveness of the land. The farmer dis- 
tant from market is always selling the soil that constitutes 
his capital ; whei'eas, the one near London not only returns 
to it the I'efuse of its own products, but adds thereto the 
manure resulting from the consumption of those products of 
other lands which are consumed by the millions of his own 
immediate neighborhood. 

§ 4. Of all the things needed for the purposes of man, the 
one that least bears transportation is manure ; and yet, this 
is of all the most important. Each crop withdraws from the 
earth certain elements; and if these are not replaced, thsit 
crop must soon cease to be produced. When cattle are fed 
upon the land, their, excrements restore much of the material 
of which the soil is robbed by the plants they eat. If, how- 
ever, their ^products b^ sent to distant markets, the pasture 
must eventually become exhausted. The grass lands of 
Cheshire, which had been impoverished by the exportation 
of butter and cheese produced upon them, were restored by 
the application of ground bones from the battle-fields of the 
continent, containing, like the milk, phosphate of lime. 
Different crops take very different substances, but each de- 
prives the land of some ingredient, which must be restored, 
or its fertility must be diminished. The value of the manure 
applied to the soil of Great Britain in 1850, was £103,369,139 
— $500,000,000 — a sum much exceeding the entire value of 
the British foreign trade. The sewer-water of towns con- 
tains the refuse of the food of their inhabitants in a state of 
dilution, highly favorable to the increase of fertility. " From 



OF CriANCiES OF MATTER IN FLAOE. 14] 

every town of a tlioiisand inhabitants," says Professor John- 
ston, " is carried aiinnally into the sea, manure equal to 
270 tons of grain," wortli $13,000. The drainage of a 
part of the city of Edinburgh has Ijeen made to overflow a 
tract of flat land, which is thus rendered so productive as to 
be sometimes mown seven times in a season. A German 
agriculturist has thus calculated the distance at which tho 
farmer can afford to bring manure from town : the quan- 
tity which would be worth $5 40 in the suburbs, is worth 
$4 20 if carried a single German mile — (4.6 English miles) — 
$3 50 if the distance be two — if three, $1 90 — jf four, 83 cents. 
At the distance of 4f German, or 22 English miles, he can 
pay nothing for it, the cost of transportation being fully 
equal to its value. 

We see thus that the vicinity of the consumer is indis- 
pensable for enabling the producer to raise crops of which 
the earth makes large returns. At a distance from the con- 
sumer, two causes contract his power : tho cost of trans- 
porting the crop to market, and the difficulty of bringing 
back the manure. This is a fact fatal to the theory of Mr. 
Malthus, showing, as it does, that density of population is 
necessary to the production of abundant supplies of food. 

The sum of these taxes is immense, yet are they but a 
portion of those to which the Western farmer is subjected. 
The man \vho must go to any market, must pay the cost of 
gelling there, let it take what form it may; and among tho 
charges are those of marine* and fire insurance, always 
estimated in fixing the prices of his products. All the lo.sses 
from the numerous fires occurring in great commercial 
cities, are payable out of the commodities furnished by the 
farmer, and not by those who stand between him and his con- 
sumers. 

Every act of association is an act of commerce. In order 
that commerce may increase, it is indispensable that man be 
enal)led to pa}' the debt which he contracts towards mother 
earth when taking from the soil the elements of those com- 
modities required for his support. It is the condition ujwa 
which alone progress can be made. When that is not done, 
motion in the earth diminishes, men separate more widely 
from each other, the power of association declines, land 
becomes valueless, the proportion of the labors of the com- 

* From a return in the Britisli House of Commons, it appears that 
from January 1857, to December ISGO, there happened at sea up- 
wards of 12,'otHi casualties. 



(42 CHAPTER X. § 5. 

munity required to be given to the work of transportatioD 
steadily increase, man sinks into a state of poverty, becom- 
ing daily more and more the slave of his fellow-man. 

§ 5. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of asso- 
ciation and combination. The obstacle to association is that 
resulting from distance between men and their fellow-men. 
That diminishes as men are enabled to obtain instruments by 
help of which to command the services of nature, and to 
develop the treasures of the earth. With every new develop- 
ment, they are enabled to command the aid of better machineiy 
to be used in the work of transportation, while steadily dimin- 
ishing the necessity for transportation — with constant increase 
in the power of combination, and in the growth of freedom. 

Such are not the doctrines of modern political economy ; 
which is based upon the idea of the "constantly increasing 
sterility of the soil ;" and which sees the evidence of national 
prosperity in tables of imports and exports, in an increased 
demand for ships, and a growing necessity for the trader's 
services. Now, as a century since, when the idea was 
denounced by Adam Smith, "England's treasure" is sought 
in the foreign trade ; and the " home trade" which he thought 
the most important of all, is considered as entirely subsidiary 
thereto. How the idea of over population has sprung from 
tills essential error, the I'eader may judge after having accom- 
panied us in an examination of the British colonial system, 
which it is proposed now to make. 



OP CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. H3 



CHAPTER XL 

OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED, 

1 1. Colonial Policies of Greece, Spain, and France. That of Britain the first in whii.h w« 
meet with prohibition of association among the colonists. Object of the prohibiti.ii, 
that of i)roducing a necessity for effecting changes in the place of matter. The policy 
barbaric in its tendencies, and hence it is, that it has given rise to the theory of over- 
population. 

1 2. British policy looks to the dispersion of man, and to increase in the proportion of 
siicietj' engaged in trade and transportation. Views of Adam Smith in opposition to 
tliis system. 

2 3. British colonial system, as exhibited in the West India Islands. 

i i. Theory of over-population an effort to account for facts artificially produced, by aid 
of supposed natural laws. 

§ 1. The States to whose policy reference has thus far been 
made, placed restrictions on the communication of their 
colonies with each other, and with other nations, without 
attempting; to restrict them in regard to their internal com- 
merce. The early Grecian colonics were free to make their 
exchanges where they would — at home, or abroad. Cartha- 
ginian colonists might change the forms of their various 
products to tit them for consumption ; but if they wished to 
send them abroad, they were required to pass them through 
the port of Carthage. Spain and Portugal denied to the 
Indies the right to trade with England or with Holland, 
except through the ports of Seville or of Lisbon ; but they 
never interfered with the domestic employments of the Hindoo 
people. France sought to establish colonies in both the East 
and in the West, but she never prevented her colonists from 
refining their own sugar, or making their own cloth. Far 
otherwi.se has it been with the great colonial system of 
modern times, to which the reader's attention now is asked. 

In the colonial system of England we meet, for the first 
time, with prohibitions of thai association of man with his 
fellow-man ivhich leads to the development of the individual 
faculties ; and with regulations intended to perpetuate the 
difficulties resulting from the necessity for effecting changes in 
the place of matter. 

Nearly two centuries have elapsed since the merchants of 
London prayed their government to use its best efforts "to 
discourage the woollen manufacture in Ireland," in order 
thereby to diminish the habit of combined action then rapidly 
growing up in that country, and to prevent the consumptiu?: 



1 14 CHAPTER XI. § 1. 

of Irish wool until it should have passed through English 
looms. Instead of converting it into cloth at home, the Irish 
were required to send it abroad in its rudest state, and receive 
it back in its most finished one. Already interdicted from all 
direct intercourse with foreigners, they were to be now 
restricted in their commerce among themselves. 

Trade thus becoming paramount, wars were now waged 
for the purpose of obtaining colonies ; or, according to Adam 
Smith, of " raising up colonies of customers ;" for which pur- 
pose it was required that all attempts at local association 
should be discouraged among the colonists as effectually as 
had been the case in Ireland. 

That they were so, is seen in the fact, that the first attempt 
at manufacture in the American colonies was followed by 
interference on the part of the British Legislature. In 1*110 
the House of Commons declared that " the erecting of man- 
ufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence 
on Great Britain;" and the Board of Trade was ordered to 
report upon the subject. In 1732, the exportation of hats from 
province to province was prohibited, and the number of 
hatters' apprentices limited. In 1750, the erection of any 
mill or engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited ; 
but pig iron might be imported into England duty free, thence 
to be returned in a finished form. Later, Lord Chatham 
declared that he would not allow the colonists to make for 
themselves so much as even a single hobnail. 

In 1765, the exportation of artisans from Britain was pro- 
hibited under a heavy penalty; in 1781, that of utensils 
required for the manufacture of wool or silk was likewise 
prohibited; and in 1782, the prohibition was extended to 
artificers in printing calicoes, muslins, cottons, or linens, or 
in making implements used in their manufacture. In 1785, 
the prohibition was extended to tools used in tlie iron and 
steel manufactures, and to the workmen so employed ; while 
ill 1799 it was so extended as to embrace even colliers. 

Great Britain thus aimed at preventing the people of her 
colonies, and of independent nations, from obtaining the ma- 
chinery required for enabling them to combine their efforts 
for the purpose of obtaining cloth and iron ; and thus coni- 
])elling them to bring to her their raw materials, that she 
might convert them into the commodities required for con- 
sumption, to be then in part returned to the producers, bur- 
dened with heavy charges for transportation and conversion. 
The sc<l of the latter was thus to be impoverished, while that 
of the former was beino^ enriched. 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 145 

The centralization sought to be establislied by Athens or 
Rome, Carthaji^e or Venice, was to the last degree uninipor- 
'ant, compared with that aimed at by the system above 
described. The\^ prohibited merely the commerce with distant 
men ; but here it was home commerce, the power of associa- 
tion, that was sought to be annihilated. For the accomplish- 
ment of this, no effort was omitted. Prohibition of manu- 
factures on the one hand, and bounties on the import of raw 
materials on the other, were resorted to, to prevent the 
colonists from preparing commodities for their own con- 
sumption. The great object of the system was that of 
maintaining in its most bulky form the commodity to be 
transported ; and the more perfectly that idea could be carried 
out the smaller would be the quantity of cloth obtainable by 
the man who produced the sugar, and of sugar obtainable by 
the man who produced the cloth ; but the more the trader and 
the transporter would be enriched at the cost of producers 
and consumers, both abroad and at home. 

§ 2. The one great need of man is that of combination with 
his fellow-men ; and the one great obstacle to its accomplish- 
ment is, as the reader has already seen, the absence of those 
differences which result from diversity of employments, and 
fit him for association. The object that, by means of the 
laws above referred to, was sought to be obtained, was the 
prevention of the existence of those differences, and the per- 
petuation of a state of society in which the people of other 
lands should continue mere tillers of the earth, compelled to 
constant exhaustion of the soil, by reason of the necessity for 
sending to the distant workshop their commodities in the 
rudest forms ; and to constant exhaustion of themselves, 
con-sequent upon the enormous transportation to which they 
were thus subjected. This, in its turn, involved dispersion, 
constantly increasing by reason of the perpetualh^ increasing 
necessity for resorting to new and more distant soils; witii 
constant increase in the proportion of the labor of the com 
munity required to be given to the works of trade and trans- 
portation, and diminution in the jyroportion that could bo 
given to producing commodities to be transported or ex 
changed. It was, in effect, the sacrifice of commerce at the 
ahrine of trade, and tended, necessarily, to the enslavement 
of man in all the communities in which it could be enforced 

The plain good sense of Adam Smith enabled him clearly 
to comprehend the error of a system which found in exports 
13 



146 CHAPTER XT. § 3. 

and imports the only index to prosperitj' ; anci also, fully to 
understand the enormous waste of labor resulting from iin 
posing upon communities a necessity for exporting wool 
corn, cotton, and other products of the earth, in their rudest 
shape, to be returned again in the form of cloth. He was no 
believer in centralization of any kind. Least of all did he 
believe in that which looked to compelling all the farmers 
and planters to go to a single market, and to augmenting the 
necessity for dependence on wagons and ships, while increas- 
ing the profits of trade, and the proportion of every popula- 
tion required to be employed in the work of effecting changes 
of place. On the contrary, having full and entire faith in the 
system of local centres by help of which, as he so clearly saw, 
commerce had been everywhere so much developed, that 
was the system to whose advantages he desired to call the 
attention of his countrymen. From that hour to the present, 
however, they have pursued the system that he denounced, 
all their efforts having been directed towards producing the 
effect of continuing at its highest point the tax of transporta- 
tion ; and here it is, perhaps, that we may find the cause of 
the idea of over-population. 

§ 3. Manufactures of every kind were prohibited in the 
British West Indies, the inhabitants not having been per- 
mitted even to refine their own sugar. There was no em- 
ployment for women and children but in the labors of the field. 
All were required to remain producers of raw materials, having 
no commerce among themselves except through the interven- 
tion of a people thousands of miles distant, who so used their 
power as not only to prohibit manufactures, but to prevent 
diversification of employment even in agriculture itself. In 
Jamaica, indigo had been tried ; but so large a portion of the 
price for which it could be sold in England was found to be 
absorbed by ship-owners, brokers, and the government, that 
its culture had been abandoned. Coffee was introduced, and 
as it grows on higher and more salubrious lands, its culture 
would have been of great advantage to the community ; but 
here again so small a part of the price was allowed to come 
to the producer, that it would have been abandoned had not 
government reduced its claims to a shilling a pound ; but 
even this proved so burthensome as soon to limit production 
almost entirely to the sugar-cane. 

All direct commerce with foreign nations was likewise 
prohibited, except the slave trade with Africa, which was 



OF CHANGES OP MATTER IN PLACE. 1 4t 

'•arried on so extensively that most of the demand for Spanish 
colonies was supplied from British islands. In 1775 the 
colonial legislature, desirous to prevent the excessive impor- 
tation of negroes, imposed a dut}^ of £2 per head ; but the 
home government disallowed this law, on the petition of 
English merchants. The value of the annual export of sugar, 
duty free, was then stated to be £l,G99,421 ; but so large a 
portion of the product was absorbed by freight, insurance, 
and commission, that the net jiroceeds of 775 sugar estates 
were only £726,992, or less than £1000 each. Add to the 
value above given the share of the government (12s. 3d. per 
cvvt.), and the furtlier charges before the sugar reached the 
consumer, and it will be seen that the producer received but 
a fourth of the price at which his produce sold. The planter 
W!is, therefore, little more than an overseer of slaves, whom 
he worked for the benefit of his British masters, and not for 
his own. Placed between the slave, whom he must support, 
on the one hand, and the merchants and government on the 
other, he could take for himself only what was left; and 
when the crop proved large, and prices fell, he found himself 
a ruined man. In twenty years 177 estates were sold by 
the sheriff, and no less than 55 wholly abandoned. It is 
easy now to understand the cause of the extraordinary waste 
of life in the British islands. The planter, unable to accumu- 
late machinery with which to work his land, had to depend 
on mere brute force ; and it was easier to buy this ready 
made on the coast of Africa, than to raise it on his own plan- 
tation. Hence, a constant supply of negroes was required, 
of whom little more than one in three was represented on the 
day of emancipation.* 

The planter himself was nearly as much a slave as his 
negro. Ever in debt, his property was in the hands of mid- 
dlemen, representing English factors, who accumulated for- 
tunes at his expense. In the days of Adam Smith, such 
persons, 193 in number, held in charge 606 establishments, 
yielding sugar and rum to the value of £4,000,000, on which 
they were entitled to six per cent. We have here a state of 
tilings similar to that existing in Ireland, where absentees' 
estates are managed by middlemen, who, having no interest 

* The total number imported into the British Islands in the West 
Indies oanuot have been less than 1,700,000, yet the number eman- 
cipated was but 660,000. The number imported into the United 
States cannot have exceeded half a million : they are now upwards 
01 4,000,000. 



148 CHAPTER XI. § 3. 

in the land or in the virtual slaves upon it, are anxious only 
to take from both all that can be taken, giving back as little 
as possible to either. In both Ireland and the Indies, cen- 
tralization, absenteeism, and slavery, have walked hand in 
hand, as they did in the days of the Scipios and the CaBsars. 

Why, however, did not the land-owners remain upon their 
estates ? Because the policy that limited the whole popula- 
tion to the culture of sugar, prevented the growth of any 
middle class to form the population of towns in which the 
planter might find a society that might make him regard 
the island as his home. In the French islands all was dif- 
ferent. The French government not having sought to pre- 
vent the growth of commerce, towns had sprung up, and men 
of all classes had made the islands their homes ; whereas the 
English colonists looked only to realizing fortunes, and then 
returning to England to spend them. In the French islands 
were to be found shops of every kind, where clothing, books, 
jewellery, etc., might be obtained ; while in the others, 
those who had purchases to make, were obliged to import 
tliemselves directly from England. In the one there was 
eoiamerce, society ; in the other, only trade ; and of all this, 
absenteeism, with its frightful evils, was .a necessary con- 
sequence. 

As no towns could arise under such a system, there could 
be no schools ; and even the resident planter must send his 
children to England to be educated, there most naturally to 
contract a dislike for colonial life. With inexhaustible sup- 
plies of timber, Jamaica possessed, so late as ten years since, 
not even a single saw-mill. Of the amount paid by the 
British people, thirty years since, for the products of its 
320,000 black laborers, the home government took no less 
than $18,000,000, or almost $60 per head ; and this for merely 
superintending the exchanges. 

Under such a system, waste of life was inevitable ; and 
therefore do we see hundreds of thousands of men to have been 
imported who have perished, leaving behind no traces of their 
existence. On whom must rest the responsibility for so 
hideous a state of things ? Not, surely, upon the planter, 
for he exercised no volition whatsoever. He might not em- 
ploy his surplus power in refining his own sugar, nor could 
he introduce into the island either a spindle or a loom. He 
could neither mine coal nor smelt his copper ore. Unable 
to repay his borrowings from mother earth, the loans he 
could obtain from her diminished steadily in quantity ; and 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 149 

small even as they were, tliey were absorbed by tbe cxeliatigera 
iiul tlie government. Mere instrument in their hands, as he 
was, for the deotruetion of negro morals, intelleet, and life, 
it is on tliem, and not on him, must now rest the respon^i- 
\)ility for the fact, that of all the slaves imported into the 
island, not more than two-fifths were I'epresented on the day 
jf ema'ncipation. 

Nevertheless, he it was that was regarded as the tyrant ; 
and the puljlic opinion of that very community which had 
absorbed so large a portion of the products of negro labor, 
drove the government to the measure of releasing the slave, 
appropriating a certain amount of the ransom to the pay- 
ment, first, of the mortgage debts due in England — leaving 
the owner in many cases, without a shilling for carrying on 
the work of his plantation. The consequence has been seen 
in the extensive abandonment of land, any quantity of which, 
prepared for cultivation, and of the best quality, might be 
Ijought at $5 per acre ; and in the fact, that after centuries 
of connection with a community that boasts the perfection of 
its machinery, there was recently not even a tolerable axe to 
be found upon the island. 

" A piece of fine cloth," says Adam Smith, " which weighs 
only eighty pounds, contains in it the price, not only of eighty 
pounds of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight of 
corn, the maintenance of the different working people, and 
their immediate employers ;" and it is the wool and the corn 
that travel cheaply in the form of cloth. The corn, however, 
though eaten, is not destroyed ; going back in the form of. 
manure, it enriches the land, which thus produces larger 
crops, enabling the farmer to make a constantly increasing 
demand for the services of the artisan. The reward of 
human effort growing with the growth of value in land, all 
become rich and free together ; and thus it is that the interests 
of all the members of a community are so closely connected 
with the adoption of a policy looking to increase in the 
amount of domestic commerce, and in the price of land.* 

* "They," the workmen, "work up the materials of mamifnc- 
ture wliich the land produces, and exchange their finished work, 
or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for more materials and 
provisions. Then V'^^ ^ "^"^ value to the surplus part of the rude produce. 
hy sarinij tlie expense of carn/iiig it to the water-side or to some distant 
wi'irket: and they furnish the cultivators with something in ex- 
change for it, that is either useful or agreeable to them, upon easier 
terms than they could have obtained it before. The cultivators 
get a better price for their surplus produce, and can purchase 



150 CHAPTER XI. § 8. 

The colonial policy above described, looking, as it did, \o 
results directly the reverse of this, forbade association, and 
thereby limited the whole population to a single pursuit. It 
forbade the immigration of artisans, the growth of towns, or 
the establishment of schools, and thus forbade the growth of 
intellect It impoverished the land and its owners, exter- 
minated the slave, and weakened the community, making it 
a mere instrument in the hands of those who effected or 
superintended the exchanges, the class that in all ages has 
thriven at the cost of the farmers of the world. 

In this state of things the master was required to accept a 
fixed sum of money, and release his slave from the perform- 
ance of the work to which he had been accustomed. Unfor- 
tunately, the S3'stem pursued had prevented that improvement 
of taste and feeling in the latter which could have led him to 
desire any thing beyond the merest necessaries of existence. 
Towns not having grown, he had not been accustomed even 
to see the commodities by which his fellow-laborers in the 
French islands were tempted to exertion. Schools not having 
existed even for the whites, he had himself acquired no wish 
for books, or for instruction for his children. His wife, hav- 
ing been always limited to field labor, had acquired no taste 
for dress. When, therefore, he was suddenly emancipated 
from control, he gratified the only desire that had been de- 
veloped in him, the love of perfect idleness, to be indulged to 
the extent consistent with obtaining the trivial quality of 
food and clothing needed for the support of life. 

cheaper other conveniences which they have occasion for. They 
are thus both encouraged and enabled to increase this surplus pro- 
duce by a further improvement and better cultivation of the land ; 
and as the fertility of the land has given birth to the manufacture, 
so the progress of the manufacture reacts upon the land, and in- 
creases still further its fertility. The manufacturers first supply 
the neighborhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and re- 
fines, more distant markets. For, though neither the rude produce, not 
even the coarse manufacture, could, without the greatest difficulty, support 
the expense of a consi erahle land carriage, the refined and improved manu- 
facture easih] may. In a small hulk it frequently contains the price of a 
qreat quantity of the raw produce. A piece of fine cloth, for example, which 
iceighs only eighty pounds, contains in it the price, not only of eighty pounds 
of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight of corn, the maintenance 
of the different worJcirig people, and of their immediate employers. The 
corn which could with di^culty have been carried abroad in its 
own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that "f the com- 
plete manufacture and may easily be sent to the remotest corners of the 
wo^ld.^' — Adam JSmitli. Wealth of Nations. 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 151 

§ 4. Tlie power to command the services of nature grows 
with tiiG growtli of association, and for this it is necessary 
that constantly increasing numbers may be enabled to obtain 
supplies of food from any given space. Modern political 
economy, however, teaches directly the reverse of this, assur- 
ing us that as numbers increase, there arises a necessity for 
resorting to inferior soils, with constantly increasing difficulty 
of obtaining food ; and that hence arises the disease of over- 
population. That theory, as the reader has seen, had its 
origin in England, and was simply an attempt to explain un- 
natural phenomena, the work of man, by help of imaginary 
natural laws attributed to man's Creator. 

In a state of barbarism, population is always superabun- 
dant; as civilization grows, larger numbers obtain more food 
in return to diminished labor. The more rapid is the growth 
of this power over nature, the less is the jjroportion of labor 
required for the work of transportation ; and the more com- 
l)letely is it proved that food tends to increase more rapidly 
than population. 

The system above described, based on the idea of prevent- 
ing local association, increased the proportion of the labor 
required for transportation ; while by preventing the develop- 
ment of the human faculties, it reduced the subject of its 
operations nearly to the condition of a mere brute beast. 
Hence it has been that the world has been called upon to 
witness the extermination of the vast body of people imported 
into the British West Indies, the pauperization of the people 
of England, and the invention of a system of political economy 
that ignores the distinctive qualities of man, retaining only 
those he has in common wMth the horse and the ox. 

The idea of over-population having originated in England, 
it is needed that we examine the history of those communities 
subject to the British system, with a view to ascertain if it 
be really a law of nature, or only a natural consequence of 
the policy that looked to the separation of the artisan and the 
agriculturist, and to the creation of a single workshop for the 
world. Portugal, Turkey, Ireland, and India, having been 
the countries most subjected to it, will now be examined, in 
order to ascertain how far the phenomena there observed 
correspond with those above exhibited as having occurred in 
the island of Jamaica. 



152 CHAPTER XII. § 1. 

CHAPTER XII. 

OE CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED. 

1 1. I'benomena of society, as presented in the history of Portugal. 

? 2. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of the Turkish Empire. 

j 3. Phenomena of societj', as presented in the history of Ireland. 

g 4. Real cause of the decay of Ireland. 

§ 1. The splendor of Portugal, in the sixteenth century, 
resulting from her exercise throughout the East of the power 
of appropriation, had, as has ever been the case, been attended 
with growing weakness ; and the close of that century saw 
her reduced to the condition of a Spanish province. Having 
recovered her independence, the close of the seventeenth 
century exhibits her engaged in a vigorous effort for securing 
it by means of the establishment among her people of the 
habit of association needed for the extension of their domestic 
commerce. Long celebrated for her wool, she had lacked the 
means of converting it into cloth. Now, however, she im- 
ported foreign artisans, by whose help the woollen manu- 
facture soon grew so rapidly as to supply the home demand ; 
thus lessening her dependence on the chances of trade abroad, 
while greatly promoting commerce. 

In 1703 was signed with England the famous Methuen 
Treaty, by which, in return for favors accorded to her wines, 
^he renounced the idea of creating a home demand for either 
her wool or her food. At once her markets were inundated 
with British goods, her manufactures were ruined, and the 
precious metals disappeared. 

Thus reconverted into a purely agricultural country, ex- 
haustion of the soil followed as a necessary consequence, 
attended by a decline in the numbers of her people so great 
and so continuous, that they now number but three millions, 
the decrease of the last century having been no less than 
700,000. The consequences exhibit themselves in the facts, 
that in a country which in the days of the Caesars w^as already 
well supplied with roads, the mails are now carried on horse- 
back at the rate of three miles an hour, and that the only 
mode of conveying goods from one port to another is in 
bullock-carts ; or for light goods, on mules, or on the backs 
of ffallegos ; the value of man being there so small that he is 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 153 

regardi'd as little better than a beast of burden. " It is sur- 
prising," says a recent traveler, " how ignorant the Portuguese 
are of every kind of handicraft. They seem to disdain im- 
provement, and are so inferior to the rest of Europe as to 
form a sort of disgraceful wonder in the middle of the twelfth 
century." 

The system thus described, has now endured for a century 
and a half, during which tiie power to command the services 
of nature has been constantly declining; and with the decay 
of commerce at home, the power to maintain it abroad lias so 
far diminished, that Portugal has ceased to enter into the 
consideration of those who at the commencement of the last 
century so anxiously sought her trade. Such is the condition 
of that naturally rich land after long subjection to the policy 
of the country in which originated the theory of over-popu- 
lation. 

§ 2. No portion of the Eastern hemisphere possesses greater 
natural advantages than that constituting the Turkish Em- 
pire in Europe and Asia. Wool and silk, corn, oil, and 
tobacco, might be produced in unlimited quantities, while 
Thessaly and Macedonia, long celebrated for cotton, could 
yield enough to clothe the whole of Europe. Coal and iron 
ore abound, while in some places the hills are almost masses 
of carbonate of copper. Nature has done every thing for 
that country ; yet the Turkish rayah is little better than a 
slave, and the government is compelled to submit in all 
things to the dictation of other States. Why it is so, we 
may now inquire. 

Two centuries since, the trade with Turkey was the most 
important portion of that maintained by Western Europe; 
and Turkish merchants were amongst the wealthiest of those 
who frequented the markets of the West. A little later, the 
government bound itself by a treaty with France and England 
to charge no higher duty on their imports than three per 
cent.; and as their vessels were to be exempted from all port 
charges, the system thus established was, practically, one of 
the most absolute freedom of trade. 

For more than a century, however, Turkey could still 
compete, to some extent, with the nations of the West. 
" Ambelakaia," says M. de Beaujour, "supplied industrious 
Germany, not because of the perfection of its jennies, but 
because of the industry of its spindles and the perfection of 
its colors," 



15-4 CHAPTER XII. § 2. 

Revenue from customs having no existence, the govein- 
ment had, from the date of the treaty, been dependent on 
poll, house, and land taxes. Trade had been freed from all 
let or hindrance, b^it, as a consequence, commerce at home 
became shackled by constantly increasing interferences. The 
system of local centres, nevertheless, continued in existence 
until the close of the last century, and the country remained 
both rich and strong. Great Britain, however, had even 
then invented machinery for spinning cotton, and by prohib- 
iting its export, as well as that of the artisans who could 
elsewhere have made it, had, to the best of her ability, pro- 
vided that all the cotton of the world should be brought to 
her looms, to be by them converted into cloth. The conse- 
quence was, that of 000 looms at Scutari in 1812, but 40 
remained in 1821 ; and of 2000 weaving establishments at 
Tournovo in 1812, but 200 remained in 1830. Since then, 
the cotton manufacture has, it is believed, entirely dis- 
appeared. 

For a time, cotton went abroad, to be returned in the form 
of yarn, traveling thousands of miles in search of the little 
spindle ; but even this trade has passed away, and with it 
the power to obtain anj?- reasonable reward for labor. In 
1832, women's wages were but four cents a day; men em- 
ployed in gathering mulberry leaves, and attending silk- 
works, could earn but five cents ; while at Salonica, the 
shipping port of Thessaly, men could be hired at fifty cents 
a week. Commerce had ceased to exist, and the value of 
man, as well as the utility of the earth, had almost disap- 
peared ; while the value of commodities had become so great 
as to cause men, women and children, to perish for want 
of food. 

While manufactures existed, agriculture flourished, because, 
the market being at hand, the tax of transpoi'tation was 
moderate. Roads and bridges could then be kept in order ; 
but as manufactures declined, and it became more necessary 
to carry the bulky products of the earth to distant markets, 
the need of roads increased, but the power to maintain them 
declined, always a result of the sacrifice of commerce at the 
shrine of trade. "The increased expense of transport," says 
a recent traveler, "enabled a few capitalists to monopolize 
the whole export trade ; in consequence of which the ruin 
of the landed proprietors and agriculturists soon commenced, 
and families were impoverished as villages disappeared ; 
while in many extensive districts the whole rural population 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 155 

abandoned the cultivation of tlieir native soil to emigrate to 
the nearest cities." 

Depopulation and poverty having always followed increase 
in the power of the trader, it is not surprising that travelers 
should exhibit the nation as passing steadily towards ruin, 
and the people as becoming more enslaved* the inevital)le 
result of that policy which excludes the mechanic, and tlius 
prevents the development of individuality. At the date above 
referred to (1850), not only had the silk manufacture disaj)- 
peared, but even the fila,tures for preparing the raw" silk had 
ceased to operate. The silk cultivators had become entirely 
dependent on a foreign market, in which there then existed 
one of those " crises" by means of which the agricultural 
dependents of Great Britain are so often ruined. On one 
occasion, during Mr. Macfarlane's travels, there came a report 
that silk had risen in England, producing a momentary stir 
and animation, "that," as he says, "flattered his national 
vanity to think that an electric touch, parting from London, 
the mighty heart of commerce, should thus be felt, in a few 
days, in a place so distant." Such is trading centralization ! 
It renders the agriculturists of the world mere slaves, depen- 
dent for food and clothing upon the will of a few people, 
proprietors of a small amount of machinery at "the mighty 
heart of commerce." 

The silk that is made, badly prepared because of the difiB- 
culty of obtaining good machinery, is now required to go to 
England in its rudest state, there to be fitted for being sent 
to Persia ; and thus does commerce with foreign nations 
become more impeded with every diniinution in the power to 
maintain commerce at home. 

Not only is the foreigner free to introduce his wares, but 
he may, on payment of a duty of two per cent , peddle theni 
throughout the empire until he finds a market. Traveling 
by caravan, he is lodged without expense ; wiiile the store- 
keeper is subjected to both rent and taxes, and is unable to 
contend with him. As a consequence of this entire freedom 
of trade, the poor cultivator finds himself deprived of all 
power to exchange his scanty products for the commodities 
lie needs, except on the arrival of a caravan which is far 
more likely to absorb the little money in circulation than any 
of the more bulky products of the earth. 

As usual in purely agricultural countries, the whole body 
of cultivators is hopelessly in debt, and the money-lender 
■ eeces all 4s a necessary consequence, real estate is almost 



156 CHAPTER xn. § 3. 

wliolly valueless — square miles of the richest land, near tc 
Constantinople, being purchasable at less than thousands of 
dollars. Domestic commerce having- scarcely an existence, 
it fellows here, as everywhere else, that foreign commerce is 
insignificant. But recently, the exports amounted only to 
$33,000,000, w'hile those from Great Britain to Turk<>y 
were but $11,000,000; and much of even this small quantiiy 
was sent there only on its way to other more Eastern 
markets. 

In the real and permanent interests of nations there is no 
discord. Whafecer permanently benefits one tends equally 
to do so by all others; and the day may perhaps come when 
it will be admitted among nations as among individuals, that 
an enlightened self-intei'est dictates the observance of that 
golden rule of Christianity which teaches that we should 
do unto others as we would they should do unto us. 

But a century since, Turkey, Portugal, and the West India 
Islands, were the best of England's customers. What are 
they now ? The constant cause of British wars and expendi- 
ture, poor in themselves while despised by others, and most 
especially so by Britain herself. Compelled to the pursuance 
of a policy that has desti'oyed commerce at home, they have 
become mere instruments in the hands of foreign traders, and 
have ceased to command respect among the communities of 
the world. 

§ 3. At the date of the Revolution of 1688, the woollen 
manufacture was advancing rapidly in Ireland ; but the 
government of William and Mary, in reply to an application 
of the London merchants, pledged itself to " discountenance" 
that manufacture, so as to compel the transmission of wool 
to England, while its export to foreign countries was entirely 
prohibited. 

Irish ships were next deprived of all participation in the 
benefits of the navigation laws, as well as excluded from the 
fisheries. Sugar could be imported only through England ; 
and as no drawback was allowed on its exportation to Ireland, 
tiie latter was thus taxed for the support of the foreign 
government as well as for that of her own. All colonial 
produce was required to be carried first to England ; and 
when reshipped to Ireland, it must be in English ships, 
manned by English seamen, and owned by English mer- 
ghants, thus increasing to the utmost the tax for transporta- 
tion, while denying to Ireland any share in the expenditure 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 157 

of the public revenue so collected. While thus dcprivint? 
the people of the power of combination, every inducement 
was held out to them to confine themselves to the production 
of materials for English manufactures; wool, flax, and hemp 
having been admitted free of duty. Men, women, and children 
were regarded as mere instruments to be used by trade, and, 
as in Jamaica, to be deprived of all employment but in the 
laboi's of the field. 

Pending the war of the American Revolution, however, 
freedom of commerce being claimed for Ireland and under 
circumstances that compelled compliance with the demand, 
changes were gradually made, until, at length, in 1783, her 
legislative independence was fully admitted. First among 
the measures then adopted was the imposition of duties on 
various articles of foreign manufacture, with the avowed 
intention of enabling the Irish people to employ their labor 
in converting their corn and wool into cloth, in accordance 
with the teachings of Adam Smith. Thenceforward, com- 
merce made rapid progress, attended with such development 
of mind, that the great demand for books warranted the re- 
production of all the principal English law-reports of the day, 
and very many of the earlier ones, as well as the principal 
novels, travels, and miscellaneous works. More books were 
then published in Dublin by a single house, than are now. 
probably, required to supply the greatly increased population 
of the entire kingdom. 

With 1801, however, centralization being then fully re- 
established, there came a change. By the Act of Union, the 
copyright laws were extended to Ireland, and at once disap- 
peared the large and growing manufacture of books. The 
patent laws were also extended to that country ; and while 
England had the home, the foreign, and the Irish mqrkct 
open to her, the Irish manufacturers had to contend for 
existence on their own soil, and under every possible disad- 
vantage. As a consequence, Irish manufactures disappeared 
as the act of Union gradually took effect. By its provisions, 
the duties established by the Irish Parliament with a view to 
aid the farmers in bringing the artisan into close proximity 
to themselves, were to be diminished until free trade should 
be arrived at; or, in other words, Manchester and Birming- 
ham were to have a monopoly of supplying Ireland MMth 
both iron and cloth. The duty on English woollens was to 
continue twenty years. Those on English calicoes and mus- 
lins were to continue till 1808 ; then, gradually diminishing, 
14 



158 CHAPTER XII. § 8. 

wore to :ease in 1821. Those on cotton yarn were to ceascj 
in 1810 Tlie effect of this exhibited itself in the facts, that 
in 1840 the woollen manufacturers of Dublin had declined 
from 91 to 12; the hands employed from 4918 to 602; and, 
that the wool-combers and carpet manufacturers had almost 
disappeared. Such, too, was the case in Cork, Kilkenny^ 
Wicklow, and all other of the numerous seats of manu- 
facture. 

Deprived thus of all employment other than agriculture, the 
people had but the choice between the occupation of land at 
any rent on. the one hand, or starvation on the other. The 
landlord having the power to dictate his own terms, enormous 
rents, k)w wages, the re-letting of land by intermediate op- 
pressors at five times its value, and the misery consequent 
on this, led to a succession of outrages, followed by Insur- 
rection Acts and Coercion Acts ; when the real remedy was 
to be found in the adoption of a system that might enable 
them to combine their efforts, and thus to maintain the com- 
merce that was then being sacrified at the shrine of trade. 

English writers assure us that Ireland has always been 
deficient in the capital required for manufactures ; but such 
must always be the case in purely agricultural countries. 
No such deficiency was felt in the period which immediately 
preceded the Act of Union, because commerce was then 
steadily growing, and was producing a demand for all tlie 
physical and intellectual force of the community. After that 
time commerce declined, till it died away ; and then there 
was wasted, in each and every year, an amount of capital 
adequate, if projoerly applied, to the creation of all the cotton 
and ivoollen maclnnery existing in Englaiid. In this enforced 
waste of capital may be found the true cause of the decline 
and fall of' the Irish nation. 

As commerce declined, the middlemen accumulated for- 
tunes which they could not invest in machinery, and would 
not apply to the improveaient of the land, but which might 
be sent to England ; and thus were cheap labor and cheap 
capital forced to contribute to the building up of " the great 
works of Britain." Further, it was provided by law, that, 
whenever the poor people of a neighborhood contributed even 
to a saving fund, it might not be so applied as to furnish 
local employment, but should be sent abroad to be invested 
in the British funds. 

The raw products of the soil, consumed abroad, returned 
nothing to the land, which thus became impoverished. The 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 159 

Irish people were tlius selling their soil to pay for cotton and 
woollen goods that they should have manufactured for them- 
selves ; for coal and iron which abounded at home ; and for 
a fimall quantity of tea, sugar, and other foreign commodities ; 
while the amount paid in rent to absentees, and in interest 
on mortgages, was estimated at more than thirty millions of 
dollars. The inducements to remain at home diminishing, 
those wlio could live without labor fled to England, Italy, 
or France. Those who desired to work, and felt qualified for 
something beyond manual labor, fled to p]ngland or America, 
and thus was the unfortunate country depleted of every thing 
which could render it a home, while those who could not fly 
were "starving by millions" and happy when a full-grown 
man could find employment at sixpence a day, without allow- 
.ance for clothing, lodging, or even for food ! 

The advocates of the svstem which seeks to convert all the 
world outside of England into one great farm, accounted for 
the existence of such a state of things by the fact that pojiu- 
lation was too numerous for the land : and yet a third of the 
surface, including the richest lands in the kingdom, was 
lying waste. The one thing needed to render that population 
prosperous and happy was employment, giving the power to 
maintain domestic commerce ; but this could have no exist- 
ence under the system which in so brief a period had caused 
the annihilation of the cotton manufacture of India, notwith- 
standing the advantage of having the cotton on the spot, free 
from all cost for carriage. 

Bad, however, as was this state of things, worse was then 
at hand. Poverty compelling the wretched people to fly in 
thousands across the Channel, a cry arose that the laboreis 
of England were likely to be swamped by starving Irishmen ; 
to provide against which it was needed that Irish landlords 
should be made to support their own poor, as they were by 
Act of Parliament forthwith compelled to do ; although for 
half a centur}^ previously England had rung with denuncia- 
tions of the poor-law system. Then arose, of course, an 
increased desire to rid the country of people who, unable to 
sell their labor, could pay no rent ; and from that time to the 
present, Ireland has presented, in the destruction of houses 
and the expulsion of their inhal)itants, the most shocking 
scenes — scenes more worthv of the most uncivilized part of 
Africa than of an integral portion of the British Empire. 

Tluis far, Irish agriculture had been protected in the 
English market as some small compensation for the sacrifice 



160 CHAPTER XII. § 4. 

of the domestic one ; but even that trivial boon was now to 
be withdrawn. The people of Ireland, like those of Jamaica, 
having become poor, their trade had ceased to be of value , 
though but seventy years before they had been England's 
most valued customers. The system having exhausted all 
the countries subjected to it, India, Portugal, Turkey, the 
West Indies, and Ireland herself, it had become necessary to 
seek markets in those which had to a greater or less extent 
placed the consumer beside the producer, France, Belgium, 
Germany, Russia, and America ; and the same system was 
offered them by which Ireland had been exhausted. The 
farmers everywhere were invited to impoverish their soil by 
sending its products to England to be consumed ; and the 
corn laws were repealed to enable them to compete with the 
Irishman, who was thus deprived of the English market, as 
he had by the Act of Union, been deprived of his own. The 
cup of misery was now full. The price of food fell, and the 
laborer was ruined, for his whole product could scarcely pay 
his rent. The landlord was ruined, for while unable to col- 
lect rents, he was heavily taxed to support his own impover- 
ished tenants. His land was encumbered with mortgages 
and settlements, on which he could no longer pay the interest. 
And now the British people resorted to the revolutionary 
measure of creating a special coui't for the sale of encumbered 
property, and the distribution of its proceeds, thus bringing 
on the impoverished landholder the same fate that had already 
befallen his poor tenant. 

The great object to be accomplished by means of this 
measure of spoliation was, as we were assured, the intro- 
duction of that British population and British capital which 
were needed for giving new life to Irish industry and agri- 
culture. How it has operated, and is operating, is exhibited 
in the following figures, representing the movement of the 
few past years : 

1857 1863 

Number of acres under cereal crops.. ..2,763,354 2,408,762 

" horses 600,691 579,172 

" cattle 3,618,544 3,138,275 

" sheep 3,448,676 3,303,291 

" pigs 1,252,152 1,064,502 

Such being the facts, it can afford to the reader little cause 
for surprise to know that the tendency towards emigration 
is a constantly increasing one. . 

§ 4. The Times, and other English journals, declared that 
"for a whole generolion man had been a drug, and population 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. IGl 

a nuisance,^'' and rejoiced at tlic p:radual disappearance of tlie 
native population, finding " in the abstraction of the Celtic 
race at the rate of a quarter of a million a year, a sui'er 
remedy for the inveterate Irish disease than any human wit 
could ever have imagined." 

Tliat " disease" is simply the absence of all demand for 
labor, resulting from the unhappy determination of the people 
of England to destroy the power of association throughout 
the world. The nation which begins by exporting raw pro- 
ducts must end by exporting men ; as is shown by the fact that 
in tiie decade ending in 1851, the population of Ireland had 
decreased but little less than two millions. To what causes 
is this to be attributed ? Not to any deficiency of land, for 
nearly one-third, including millions of acres of the richest 
ooils remain in a state of nature. Not to any inferiority of 
the soil, which is confessedly among the richest in tlie empire. 
Not to a deficiency of mineral wealth, for coal, iron, and 
other metals abound. Not to any deficiency of physical 
qmilities in the Irishman, it being an- established fact that he 
is capable of performing more labor than the Englishman, the 
Frenchman, or the Belgian. Not to any deficiency of intel- 
lectual ability, Ireland having given to England her most 
distinguished soldiers and statesmen, and having throughout 
the world furnished evidence that the Irishman is capable of 
the highest intellectual attainments. In spite of all these 
advantages, he is, at home, a slave to the severest taskmasters, 
and in a condition of poverty such as exhibits itself in no 
other part of the civilized world. No choice being left him 
but between expatriation and starvation, he abandons the 
home of his fathers to seek elsewhere that subsistence which 
Ireland can no longer afford him. The state of things there 
existing is often charged to the account of the potato, which, 
as Mr. McCuIloch informs his readers, has lowered the stan- 
dard of living, and tended to the multiplication of population. 
"The peasantry of Ireland," he says, "live in miseraljie mud 
cal)ins, without either a window or a chimney, or any thing 
that can be called furniture;" hence it is, as he says, they 
work for low wages. We have here effect substituted for 
cause. The absence of demand for ]al)or causes wages to be 
fio low, that the laborer can obtain nothing but mud cabins 
and potatoes ; and this is caused by that trading centraliza- 
tion which looks to destro3Mng the power of association and 
preventing that diversity of employment to which, alone, can 
ft-e look for maintenance of the powers of the land, or foi 
Advance in wealth, civilization and jxAvcr. 



162 CHAPTER xn. § 4. 

It is singular that modern political economy should have 
so entire!}'' overlooked the great fact, that man is a mere 
borrower from the earth, and that when he does not pay his 
debts, she does as do all other creditors, expelling hivi from 
his holding. England makes of h§r soil a reservoir for the 
refuse yielded by the raw commodities of almost half the 
world, thus obtaining manure that has been valued at 
$500,000,000, or five times more than the value of the cotton 
crop of America ; yet so important is that commodity that she 
imports in a single year more than 200,000 tons of guano, at 
a cost of more than $10,000,000. Nevertheless, her writers 
teach other nations, that the true way to become rich is to 
exhaust their land by exporting its products in their rudest 
state ; and then, when Irishmen follow the soil that has 
been sent to England, the world is assured that "the unex- 
ampled misery of the Irish people is owing to the excessive 
augmentation of their numbers;" and that "nothing can be 
more futile than to expect any real or lasting amendment in 
their situation until an effectual check has been given to the 
progress of population." " How," asks the Times, " are they 
to be fed and employed ?" " That," as it continues, " is the 
question which still baffles an age that can transmit a message 
round the world in a moment of time, and point out the 
locality of a planet never yet seen." 

It is, nevertheless, a question readily answered. Let them 
have commerce, let them be emancipated from the dominion 
of trade, and they will find at once a demand for their powers, 
whether mental or physical. What Ireland needs is, that 
societary motion and that power of combination which re- 
sult from diversity of employments. Let her have them, and 
she will cease to export food, while her people perisli of 
famine. Give her them, and her land, ceasing to be impover- 
ished by the exportation of its most valuable elements, will 
both " feed and employ her people ;" and the doctrine of 
over-population will then cease to find support in the 
harrowing details of Irish history. .In none other can tliere 
be found such proof conclusive of the fact, that the raising of 
raw produce for the supply of foreign markets is an employ 
ment fit only for the slave and the barbarian. 



J 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 163 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE — CONTINUED. 

j 1, Local action, and local combination, conspicuous throughout the history of Hindostat 

'J'heir disappearance under the British rule. . 

5 2. Commerce sacrificed at the shrine of trade. Annihilation of Indian manufactures. 

Its ruinous effects. 
J .! 'Waste of capital, and destruction of the power of accumulation. 
J 4. Diminution in the security of person and property correspondent with the extension 

of British rule, and with the growing centralization, 
g 5. Trivial ralue of private rights in the land of India. India a paying country undor its 

native pnnces. Its steady deterioration under the system which looks to increasine the 

necessity for the trader.and transporter's services, 
g li. Review of the phenomena observed in the four great communities, above referred to. 

nitli rinse in all other respects, they are alike in the fact, that they have been deprived 

of all power to diversify their employments, and have thus been forced to increase their 

dependence on the transporter and the trader, 
g 7. Destructive effects of a growing necessity for the services of the trader. British 

policy looks solely to the inciease of trade. Constant waste of capital in all the 

countries subject to the system 
g 8. Origin of the idea of over-population 

§ 1. In no part of the world has there been seen a greater 
tendency to voluntary association than once existed in Hin- 
dostan. In none did the smaller communities exercise to a 
greater extent the power of self-government. Each village 
liad its distinct organization, under which the natives lived 
from the earliest times down to a recent date Revolutions 
might occur and dynasties might succeed each other, but so 
long as his own little society remained undisturbed the 
simple Hindoo gave himself no concern about what might 
happen in the distant capital. 

The Mahometan conquest left these simple institutions un- 
touched. Each Hindoo village had its distinct municipality ; 
and over a certain numl)er of villages was a hereditarv chief 
and accountant, both possessing great local authority, and 
certain territorial estates. The Mahometans early saw the 
poliey of not disturbing an institution so complete ; and they 
availed themselves of the local influence of these officers to 
reconcile their subjects to their rule. 

Local action and combination everywhere exhibit them- 
selves throughout the history of India. Rulers being nu- 
merous, taxation was heavy ; but, the taxes being locally 
expended, nothing went from off the land. Manufactures, 
too, were widely spread, employing the labor not required in 
agriculture. On the coast of Coromandel and in the province 



164 CHAPTEE xin. § 1. 

of Bengal, sixty years since, it would have been difficult to 
find a village in which every man, woman, and child, was not 
employed in making a piece of cloth. Its progress included 
no less than a description of the lives of half the people of 
Hindostan. Bengal was celebrated for fine muslins, and 
the Coromandel Coast for chintzes and calicoes, while West- 
ern India produced coarse goods of every kind. Though 
over-taxed, and often plundered by invading armies, the 
country continued both rich and prosperous. 

The battle of Plassey having established British power in 
India centralization thenceforward grew rapidly, and the 
country became filled with adventurers, men whose sole 
object was the accumulation of fortune by any means, how- 
ever foul ; as is well known to all familiar with the indignant 
denunciations of Burke.* England was thus enriched as 
India becanae impoverished. 

Step by step the British power was extended, and every- 
where was adopted the Hindoo principle that the sovereign, 
as proprietor of the soil, was entitled to half of the gross 
produce. The land tax. now called rent, had formerly been 
limited to a thirteenth, then raised to a sixth ; but in the 
reign of Akbar (sixteenth century) it was fixed at one-third, 
numerous other taxes having been then abolished. With the 
decline of the empire, the local sovereigns had not only in- 
creased it, but had revived taxes that had been discontinued, 
while instituting others, all of which were now continued 
under the British rule. Further, having a monopoly of trade, 
the company could dictate the prices of all that it sold, as 
well as of all that it bought, another most oppressive, tax 
imposed for the benefit of absentee landlords.f 

* " The country was laid waste with fire and sword ; and that land 
distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of fraternal 
government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and 
plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert covered with rushes 

and briers, and with jungles full of wild beasts." "That 

universal, systematic breach of treaties, which had made British 
faith proverbial in the East !" — Speech on Fox's East India. Bill. 

f "The misgovernment of the English was carried to a point such 
as seemed hardly compatible with the existence of society They 
forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap. They insiilted with 
impunity the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal. authorities of the 
country. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at 
Calcutta, while 30,000,000 of human beings were reduced to the ex- 
tremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed to live under 
tyranny, but never under tyranny like this," .... " Under their 
old masters, they had at least one resourca ; when the evil became 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 105 

Exhaustion being the natural consequence of centraliza- 
tion, the ability to pay taxes diminished, and a sort of landed 
aristocracy, responsible to the govern nient for their payment, 
was now created in the Zemindars. From mere officers of 
the crown these become now great landed proprietors, 
masters of a host of poor tenants, who hold their land at 
will and are liable to torture if they fail to pay. Thus do 
we find the middleman system of Ireland and of the Western 
Indies, transplanted to those of the East. 

The Zemindars, however, unable to collect the taxes, were 
in their turn sold out and ruined. That system having failed, 
it was next determined to arrest the extension of the perma- 
nent settlement, and arrange with each little ryot, or culti- 
vator, to the entire exclusion of the village authorities. 
How this has operated is thus described by Mr. Fullerton, 
a member of the Madras Council : — 

" Imagine the revenue leviable through the agency of one 
hundred thousand revenue officers, collected or remitted at 
their discretion, according to the occupant's means of paying, 
whether from the produce of his land or his separate propei't}' ; 
and in order to encourage every man to act as a spy on his 
neighbor, and report his means of paying, that he may save 
himself from all extra demand ; imagine all the cultivators of 
a village liable at all times to a separate demand, in order to 
make up the failure of one or more individuals of the parish. 
Imagine collectors to every county, acting under the orders 
of a board, on the avowed principle of destroying all com- 
petition for labor by a general equalization of assessment, 
seizing and sending bac.-k all runaways to each other. Lastly, 
imagine the collector the sole magistrate or justice of peace 
of the county, through the medium of whom alone any com- 
plaint of personal grievance suffered by the subject can reach 
the superior court. Imagine, at the same time, every sub- 
ordinate officer employed in the collection of the land revenue 
to be a police officer, vested with the power to fine, confine, 
put in the stocks, and flog any inhabitant within his range, 
on any charge, without oath of the accuser or sworn recorded 
evidence of the case." 

insupportable, the people rose and pulled down the govermeiil. 
But the Euglish government was not to be shaken off. That govern- 
ment, oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian despot- 
ism, was strong with all the strength of civilization. It resembled 
the government of evil genii rather than the goverumenl of humau 
tyrants. ' ' — Maiaahiy. 



J 66 CHAPTER XIII. § 2. 

Under such a system tliere could be no circulation, no com- 
merce, and without that there could be neither force nor 
progress. In some districts the share of the government 
was no less than sixty or seventy per cent., heaped on which 
were taxes on every description of machinery in use, requir- 
ing interferences of the most inquisitorial kind, and forbidding 
all improvement. In settling the taxes paid by looms, the 
weaver was required to report the number of his children, 
and what assistance they rendered him ; and the more they 
all exerted themselves the higher became the contribution. 
The oil-mill, the potter's kiln, the goldsmith's tools, the 
sawyer's saw, the blacksmith's anvil, the carpenter's tools, 
the cotton-beater's bow, the weaver's loom, and the fisher- 
man's boat — all were taxed. No machinery of any descrip- 
tion was allowed to escape ; and large allowances were made 
to informers to induce those w^ho did not desire to work to 
become spies on those who did ; and this system is, or was 
quite recently, still in force. 

Further taxes were collected, at local custom-houses, on 
exchanges between the several parts of the country, while 
monopolies of salt, opium, and tobacco, were created for the 
benefit of the public revenue. The manufacture of salt was 
prohibited ; and even its collection along the sea-shore, 
where nature freely furnishes it, was punishable by fine and 
imprisonment. . Even the quantity collected by the Com- 
pany's officers was limited to that required for supplying the 
demand at monopoly price, the rest being regularly destroyed, 
lest the poor ryot should obtain at diminished cost what was 
needed to render palatable the rice which constituted almost 
his only food. 

Under the native princes, the produce of taxation was 
locally expended ; but under the centralization system it is 
required to go constantly abroad, the real weight of taxation 
being thus almost indefinitely increased by the consequent 
destruction of the power of combination. In this manner is 
commerce sacrificed to trade. 

§ 2. Cotton abounded, and half a century since native labor 
not only supplied the home demand but produced a hundred 
millions of pounds of cloth per annum for export to distant 
countries. Exchange was so much in favor of India, that a 
rupee, now worth but 44 cents, was ■ then w^orth no less 
than 64. The company had a monopoly of collecting taxes, 
but in return it preserved to the people the control of their 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 167 

domestic market. Such protection was required, because, 
while England prohibited the export of a single collier who 
might instruct the people in mining coal, of a steam-engine 
or a mechanic who could make one, of a power-loom, or of 
an artisan who could give to the poor Hindoo instruction in 
the use of such machines — and thus systematically prevented 
them from acquiring control over the great forces of nature — 
she at the same time imposed heavy duties on the produce 
of Indian looms received in Britain. 

Later, however, the trade to India was thrown open, the 
rcsh-ictions on the export of machinery and artisans being 
still maintained in full force ; and thus were the poor ana 
ignorant people of that country suddenly exposed to compe- 
tition with a community possessed of implements greatly 
more effective than their own. Twenty years still later we 
find a whole year to have passed without the export of a 
single piece of cloth ; and thus did commerce perish under 
the oppressive demands of trade ! 

When the export of machinery from Britain was prohibited, 
it was done with a view to compel all the wool and cotton of 
the world to come thither to be spun and woven, thus depriv- 
ing all other nations of the power to apply their labor except 
in raising the raw materials required for keeping in operation 
the one great " workshop of the world." Its effects in India 
exhibit themselves in a ruin and distress to which, said Sir 
Robert Peel, " no parallel can be found in the annals of 
commerce." Great seats of manufacture have wholly disap- 
peared, the flourishing city of Dacca, once containing 90,000 
houses, being now but a mass of ruins, overgrown with 
jungle. For the accomplishment of this work of destruction, 
the children of Lancashire, according to the same authority, 
were employed fifteen and seventeen hours per day, during 
the week, and on Sunday morning, from six to twelve, in 
cleaning the machinery. In Coventry ninety-six hours a 
week was the time usually required ; and of those employed, 
viiany obtained but 2s. 9d. (66 cents) as the wages of a week, 
The ohject to be accomplished was that of underworking the 
poor Hindoo, and driving him from the market of the world, 
and from his own ; and the means employed was that of 
cheapening labor, the laborer being, according to modern 
doctrines, little more than a mere instrument to be used by 
trade. 

§ 3. The poor ryot pays fifteen or twenty pence for the 



168 CHAPTER XIII. § 4. 

British cloth made from a pound of cotton that had yielded 
him but a penny ; and all this difference is paid for the service 
of others, while he himself is unemployed. " Half the human 
time and energy of India," we are told by Mr. Chapman, 
in his Cotton and Commerce of India, "runs to waste," He 
might, however, have gone much further than this. Where 
there is no commerce, and where, .consequently, men are 
forced to depend on distant trade, nine-tenths of the power 
of a community runs to waste. In India capital is wasted 
weekly to an amount greater than the annual value of the 
goods imported. The works constructed in former times for 
the purposes df irrigation, have gone to ruin, and the richest 
lands have been abandoned. In the valley of the Ganges 
not one-third of the cultivable lands, according to Mr. Chap- 
man, is under cultivation ; and, as he says elsewhere, over all 
India one-half is waste. In the Madras presidency not one- 
fifth is cultivated, yet are severe famines facts of frequent 
occurrence. Look where we may in that magnificent country, 
we see evidence of declining individuality and diminished 
power of combination, accompanied by -increasing centraliza- 
tion, and centralization, slavery, and death, always travel 
?iand in hand together. 

§ 4. The tendency towards civilization having been, in 
all ages, in the ratio of the development of individual faculty, 
and the system now before us looking to the reverse of this, 
we might reasonably expect here to find society moving in 
the direction of growing barbarism. Accordingly, we find a 
marked increase of crime of every kind in passing from the 
newly acquired to the older of the company's possessions. 
Robbery, perjury, and forgery, abound in Bengal and Madras ; 
while in the Punjaub, they are infrequent, and, as Mr Camp- 
bell, in his Modern India and its Government, informs us, 
"an oath is astonishingly binding. The longer we possess 
a province," he says, " the more common and general does 
perjury become ;" while Col. Sleeman, another high authority, 
assures us, " that the hill tribes are remarkable for their 
strict veracity." In the newly acquired provinces, too, the 
people read and write with facility ; whereas, from the older 
ones education has disappeared. As regards intemperance, 
Mr. Campbell finds himself obliged to state that " it increases 
where our rule and system have been long established ;" and 
Captain Westmacott tells his readers that " in places the 
longest under our rule, there is the largest amount of de- 
pravity and crime." 



I 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 169 

§ 5. The gross land revenue obtained from a country that 
is, naturally, one of the richest of the world, and with an area 
of 300,000,000 acres, is $72,000,000. In no case does the 
land subject to taxation seem to be worth more than four 
years' purchase ; while over a large portion of the country it 
appears to be wholly destitute of exchangable value. There 
being, however, some lands tax free, it is possible that the 
whole may be worth, on an average, four years' purchase, 
giving $288,000,000 as the money value of all the rights in 
land acquired by the people of India in the thousands of 
years it has been under cultivation. The few people of the 
little and sandy State of New Jersey, with its area of 6900 
square miles, have acquired rights in the land valued at 
$150,000,000; while the little island on which stands the 
city of New York, would sell for almost twice as much as all 
the proprietary rights to land in India, with its hundreds of 
millions of acres, and its 150,000,000 of inhabitants ! 

"Under its native princes," says Mr. Campbell, "India 
was a paying country." Under absentee rule it has ceased 
to pay, because, the power of combination having been anni- 
hilated, the internal commerce declines steadily, while the 
external, until the recent stoppage of the supply of cotton 
caused an increased demand for the produce of India with 
large increase of prices, has amounted to but fifty cents a 
head. Centralization has grown daily, and every stage of its 
growth has been marked by an increasing inability to meet 
taxation ; and the wider the extension of the system, the 
greater has been the diflBculty of collecting revenue suf- 
ficient for keeping in motion the machine of government. 
This it has been that has forced the representatives of British 
power and civilization into becoming traders in that per- 
nicious drug, opium, by means of which the Chinese people 
are taxed, annually, to the extent of nearly twenty millions 
of dollars, and not less than half a million of human lives. 
" The immolations of an Indian Juggernaut," says a recent 
writer, "dwindle into insignificance before it;" and yet, for 
the maintenance of this trade it has been that the towns and 
cities of China have been sacked, and their* people ruined, 
even when not exterminated. Trade and war have gone 
hand in hand from the beginning of the world, and all their 
triumphs have been obtained at the expense, of commerce. 

Nowhere in the world have they traveled so thoroughly 
together, as in India under the British domination, and 
nowhere, consequently, could we more reasonably have 
15 



170 CHAPTER XIII. § 6. 

looked for such a rebellion as that which recently has 
occurred, attended, as it has been, with barbarities, on both 
sides, such as find no parallel in modern European or Amer- 
ican history. Studying the facts here presented for examina- 
tion by this magnificent country, we are forcibly reminded 
of the bitter and prophetic denunciation of the system con- 
tained in the following lines by one of the most distinguished 
of British poets : 

" ' Foes of mankind!' her guardian spirits say, — 
* Revolving ages bring the bitter day, 
When heaven's unerring aim shall fall on you, 
And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew I' " — Campbell. 

The history of the world is little more than a record of the 
efforts of the few who were strong to restrain the growth of 
the power of association, to prevent the organization of 
society, to interfere with the maintenance of commerce, and 
to retard the acquisition of that power over nature which 
constitutes wealth ; and thus to enslave the many who were 
weak. Its every page presents evidence of the fleeting 
character of all prospei'ity obtained by aid of measures 
violative of that great and fundamental law of Christianity 
which requires us to respect the rights of our neighbor as 
we would have our own respected ; but in none is found a 
more instructive lesson than that which records the annihila- 
tion of commerce in India, and the growth of that pauperism 
in England which gave rise to the doctrine of over-popula- 
tion. Both waxed together, and together both must wane — 
ihe measures required for the relief of the Hindoo being pre- 
cisely those required for the extirpation of pauperism among 
the Britons. 

§ 6. The reader has now had placed before him a picture 
of the movements of four considerable nations, and of one 
assemblage of nations, the whole comprising more than a 
fifth of the population of the globe. All of these have been 
subjected to that system of policy which looks to the preven- 
tion of combination, and to the maintenance at its highest 
point that most oppressive of all taxes, the tax of transporta- 
lion. In all, nature is daily obtaining greater power over 
man ; in all, wealth diminishes, with constant decrease in the 
value of man, who becomes from year to year more the slave 
of his fellow-man. 

It may however be said, that the people of India are indo-,. 



1 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. ITl 

lent ; tliat tlie Turks are Mohammedans and fatalists ; that the 
Portuguese and Irish nations have a religious faith adverse 
to the development of mind ; that the laborers of Jamaica 
are but little removed from barbarism ; and, that in facts like 
these may be found the causes of the growing weakness of 
the several communities whose situation is above described. 
The people of the Turkish Empire had, however, precisely 
the same modes of thought a century since that they have 
now; yet the commerce with them was accounted the most 
valuable portion of that of Western Europe. The faith of 
the enlightened Moors of Spain was the same as that of the 
men of the shores of the •Hellespont, and we know well that 
it there presented no obstacle to the progress of civilization. 
The Portuguese are no more Catholic than were those of 
their predecessors who made the Methuen treaty, and whose 
connuerce was then deemed by Englishmen to be of such 
high importance. They, as well as the Irish people, hold the 
same faith with those of France, among whom agriculture 
and manufactures are now advancing with such rapidity. 
The negroes imported into Jamaica were no more barbarian 
than those brought to Virginia and Carolina; yet, while 
each of these latter is represented by seven of his descendants, 
the British Islands present but two for every five received. 
Differing in I'eligious faith, color, race, and climate, these 
comiQunities are alike in one respect ; that they have been 
deprived of the power so to diversify employment as to be 
enabled to develop the various faculties of their members, and 
thus to fit them for that association and combiiiation without 
which man can obtain no power to command the great forces 
of nature. Limited entirely to the pursuits of the field, they 
have been compelled to export their produce in its rudest 
state; thus exhausting the soil, and diminishing the return 
to human effort. Under such circumstances commerce would 
necessarih'' decline, and the power of the trader and trans- 
porter increase, while the cultivator would more and more 
become a mere instrument to be used by those who live by 
the exercise of their powers of appropriation. That he does 
BO become in all these countries is most certain ; and that 
such are the inevitable consequences of a policy wliich looks 
to the prevention of combination, and of the development of 
the latent powers of man, cannot admit of a moment's doubt. 
In each and every of them we find evidence of the great 
truth, that the raising of raw products for distant markets is 
the proper work of the slave and the barbarian, and that the 



112 CHAPTER XIII. § 1. 

policy ■vv'hieli looks to tlie production of that effect is un- 
worthy of a community that claims a place among the 
Christian communities of the world. In attributing to it, 
then, the existing state of things, we obtain one great and 
uniform cause for one great and uniform effect — a policy tend- 
ing to the production of barbarism, leading to famines and 
pestilences, ending in decay and death, and thus giving color 
to the theory of over-population. 

§ 1. That man may acquire power over nature, it is indis- 
pensable that the market for his labor and his products be 
near at hand. When it is distant, however perfect may be 
the means of transportation, the manure cannot be returned 
to the land, nor can its powers be maintained. The facilities 
of transportation throughout Ireland have been greatly in- 
creased in the half century that has just elapsed ; bi^t with 
every stage of that improvement famines and pestilences have 
increased in number and in force, the completion of an ex- 
tensive system of railroads having at length been signalized 
by one of such severity as entirely to distance all that had 
preceded it. With each such stage the soil was still more 
rapidly impoverished, the laborers more and more fled from 
their homes, and intellect more tended to disappear. 

Railroads are now being made for, and not by, the people 
of India. This is done, avowedly, for the further promotion 
of the export of the raw produce of the soil, and the effect 
must inevitably be the same as that observed in Ireland. 
The little that remains of Indian manufactures must disap- 
pear, and cotton must be more and more required to find its- 
way from the producer in the heart of India to the consumer 
of his immediate neighborhood, by the circuitous route of 
Calcutta and Manchester. The more railroads made the 
smaller will be the domestic demand for labor ; and the 
greater will be the tendency of the men to abandon their 
wives and children and fly to the sugar plantations of the 
Mauritius in search of food. 

An enlightened self-interest teaches that all men profit by 
the improvement of their neighbors ; and it should induce 
the stronger of the communities of the world to protect and 
strengthen the weaker. Such, however, has never been the 
policy of nations, and for the reason, that they have been, to 
so great an extent, in the hands of the class that lives by 
appropriation, the soldier, the slave-owner, the trader, and 
the politician. To this it is due that even these United 



OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 173 

States have shown so great a disposition to oppress tbeir 
weaker neighbors, the Mexicans on the one hand, and the 
poor remnant of the Indian tribes on the other. By no 
people of the world, however, has this course been so uni- 
formly pursued, as by that of England, the only one whose 
policy haa looked wholly to the advancement of the trader's 
interest; and the only one that now recognizes, as its car- 
dinal principle, the trader's motto: "Buy in the cheapest 
market, and sell in the dearest." Prohibiting association 
where it did not yet exist, and annihilating it where it did, 
the results are seen in the reduction of the people subject to 
Its sway to the dead level of mere tillers of the earth, with 
rapid progress towards decay and barbarism. Such are the 
consequences that must result in the existing state of national 
immorality, from perfect freedom of intercourse between a 
strong and well developed community on the one side, and a 
weak and imperfect one on the other. 

§ 8. The steam-engine digests fuel and power is produced. 
Man digests fuel in the form of food, by the help of which he 
obtains power to labor with his mind or his body, or with 
both together. Alike in the fact that they both digest capital 
in one form, and reproduce it in another, they differ in one 
important respect, namely : that while the iron locomotive 
can exist without food, man cannot. The railroad manager 
avoids the consumption of fuel when he does not need the 
services of the engine, knowing it to be a ivaste of cajntal. 
The manager of the human machine must burn fuel even 
when there is no demand for power; and therefore it is that 
in countries in which there is no diversity of employment 
muscular force and mental energy go to waste, while the 
powers of the soil decline from year to year because of the 
constant withdrawal of the constituent elements of food and 
clothing — a course of proceeding to which nature has affixed 
the penalties of poverty, slavery, famine, and death. The 
British system, looking as it does to the limitation of the 
people of the world to a single and diminutive workshop, 
tends to the production of these effects, and hence it has been 
that British economists have been led to find in a theory of 
over population an explanation of the fact that growing 
pauperism had been the steady attendant upon an increase 
of power to command the forces of nature. 



It4 CHAPTER XIV. § 1. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

OP CHANGES OF MATTER IN FORM. 

1. — Of Chemical and Mechanical Changes. 

g 1. For effecting changes in the forms of matter, a knowledge of the properties of mat- 
ter is required. The work of conversion more concrete and special than that of tran8- 
portation; and, therefore, later in its development. Instruments reaiuired for obtaining 
power to command the services of the natural forces. That power constitutes wealth 
Conversion diminishes the labor required for transportation, while increasing that which 
may be given to production. Economy of human effort resulting from increased facility 
of conversion. 

J 2. Societary motion tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, when permitted to proceed 
onward and undisturbed. Efforts to obtain a monopoly of the control of the natural 
forces required in the work of conversion. 

g 3. Rude character of English commerce at the opening of the fourteenth century. 
Phenomena then presented, precisely similar to those exhibited in the agricultural 
communities of the present day. 

1 i. Change of policy under Edward III., and its effects. Adoption of the protective 

policy under Charles II. 
g 5. Effects of dependence upon the distant market, as shown in England, in the early 

portion of the eighteenth century. Changes in the condition of the people consequent 

upon diminution of that dependence. 
g 6. Monopolistic character of the British system. Nothing comparable with it, in its 

power for evil, ever before devised. 

2 7. Power for evil when wrongly directed, exists, everywhere, in the ratio of that for 
good when guided in the right direction. British system looks to diminishing the tax 
of transportation for the British people, but increasing it for the other nations of the 
world. 

§ 1. To transport the sticks of wood by means of which 
our colonist might, in some degree, shelter himself from the 
weather, required the exertion of brute force alone ; but 
before he could succeed in converting any one of them into a 
bow it was needed that he should make himself acquainted 
with certain properties of matter known to us as tenacity and 
elasticity. For the effectuation of changes of form there was 
required, therefore, a knowledge of the qualities of the things 
to be converted; whereas, for effecting changes of place, he 
needed only to know their number, magnitude, or weight. 
Thus, the work of conversion, more concrete and special, fol- 
lowed in order of development the more abstract one of trans- 
portation. 

Few things are yielded by the earth in the precise form in 
which they are fitted for serving the purposes of man. He 
may eat apples, dates, or figs, as they oorae from the tree ; 
but the potato must be cooked, the grain crushed, and the 
flour baked, before they can be consumed. He may wrap 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 175 

tne sivin around his slioulders ; but before he can convert tlie 
wool into a proper garment, he must malve himself familiar 
with the properties by whicTi it is distinguished. The foliage 
may shield him from the sun, but to obtain proper shelter 
from the weather he must learu to fell the tree, and to con- 
vert it into logs, or planks. 

Of all the wonderful provisions of nature, there is probably 
none more beautiful than that which is here observed. The 
necessity for changing the form of nature's products before 
they can be fitted for man's consumption, constitutes an 
obstacle to be surmounted ; and one that does not exist in 
relation to birds, beasts, or fishes, to all of wdiich food is fur- 
nished in the precise form in which it may be consumed. 
The clothing, too, of the lower animals is similarly supplied 
by nature, whereas man must change the form of the flax, the 
silk, or the wool, before it can be made to serve his purposes. 
In the necessity for exertion thus imposed upon him, we find 
the greatest stimulus to activity of mind, leading to the 
development of individuality, and fitting him for association 
with his fellow-men. Had food and clothing been supplied 
to him in their perfect form, his faculties would everywhere 
have I'emained as much inert as are now those of the inhabi- 
tants of the Pacific Islands, whole families of whom are sup- 
plied with food from a single bread-fruit-tree, while clothing 
is superseded by a constant summer's sun. Nature giving 
these unasked, there is little inducement for the exercise of 
those faculties by which man is distinguished from the brute 
— faculties by means of which he was eventually to be enabled 
to obey the command which requires of him that he should 
" Replenish the earth and subdue it." 

Power to direct the forceii of nature constitutes wealth. 
The greater the wealth, the smaller is the proportion of 
human labor required for effecting chemical or mechanical 
changes in the form of matter, and the larger is the proportion 
thereof that may be given to the accomplishment of those 
vital changes by means of which there is obtained an increase 
in the quantity of things to be converted. The mill, the 
spinning-jenny, and the power-loom, by diminishing the 
labor required for effecting changes in the forms of grain aad 
wool, set free a large amount of labor that may be given to 
augmenting the supply of both. The steam-engines of Great 
Britain are estimated as being capable of doing the work of 
600,000,000 of men. while the planing-machines of these 
United States, driven by steam, are estimated as being eq'ial 



176 CHAPTER XTV. § 1. 

to the labor of several millions. Here is great economy o* 
human efifort, but to this must yet be added the further saving 
resulting from the transportation of finished as compared 
with unfinished products. 

With every approach towards increased facility in the 
work of conversion near at home, there is witnessed a great 
increase in the economy of human efifort resulting from in- 
creased economy of the gifts of nature. Tlie poor savage of 
the West spends days and nights roaming over the prairies in 
search of food, and is yet obliged to waste the larger portion 
of the products of the chase ; while the early settler destroys 
the tree and sells its ashes to distant men who gladly pay 
for them, with all the enormous cost of transportation added 
to their original price. As wealth and population grow, the 
stem is made to yield planks for houses and mills ; the bark 
to help in fitting skins for being converted into shoes ; and 
the branches to furnish the pegs with which those shoes are 
made. The rags of a poor and scattered settlement are 
wasted, but as numbers increase mills appear, and these rags 
become converted into paper. The little and lonely furnace 
of the West wastes half the power afiforded by its fuel ; but 
the great one of the East applies its heat to drive the engine, 
and its gas to heat the blast. In the hands of the chemist, 
clay becomes alumina, and promises soon to furnish a cheap 
and perfect substitute for the expensive silver. Horse-shoe 
nails dropped in the streets during the daily traffic, reappear 
in the shape of swords and guns. The clippings of the travel- 
ing tinker are mixed with the parings of the horses' hoofs, or 
the cast-ofif woollen garments of the poorest laborer, and soon 
afterward, in the form of dyes of the briglitest hue, grace the 
dress of courtly dames. The main ingredient of the ink with 
which we write may have been part of the hoop of an old 
beer-barrel. The bones of dead animals yield the chief con- 
stituent of lucifer matches. 

The pound of flax, having passed through the hands of the 
lace-maker, exchanges for more than its weight in gold. The 
leaves of the fir and the pine, in Silesia, become blankets. The 
scraps of leather become glue, and the hair that is cut from the 
human head may be exchanged for gloves and ribbons ; and 
thus it is that as men are more and more enabled to associate, 
and to combine their efforts, each and every particle of matter 
is more and more utilized, with constant decline in the value 
of commodities required for their use, and constant increase 
in the value of man himself. 



I 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. HT 

§ 2. As population increased, men were enabled more and 
more to combine together for obtaining power to direct the 
natural forces ; ol4aining, too, at every step, increased com- 
mand over themselves — building towns, or local centres, in 
which the artisan and the trader could associate for self- 
defence. The more they could associate, the more was in- 
dividuality developed ; and therefore has it been that freedom 
grew so rapidly in the towns and cities of Greece and Italy, 
France and Germany, the Netherlands and Britain. 

Power has thus everywhere resulted from association ; but 
it has almost universally been accompanied by a selfish desire 
for securing a monopoly of its exercise. The Phoenicians 
carefully guarded the secret of their dyes, and the Venetians 
were so jealous of their secrets that tliey, by prohibiting emi- 
gration, reduced their artisans to a condition approaching 
that of slavery. The Flemings having succeeded in establish- 
ing among themselves the diversity of employments required 
for developing intellectual force, exercised for a long time the 
power of association to an extent then unparalleled in 
Northern or Central Europe. Here, too, however, the spirit 
of monopoly made its appearance, bringing with it regulations 
tending to give the trader advantages over both the domestic 
artisan and the foreign producer of raw materials, thereby 
causing emigration of the one, and a war of tariffs on the part 
of the other ; and in due season Flemish power followed in 
the wake of that of Carthage and of Tyre. The Dutch, profit- 
ing of the difficulties of their immediate neighbors, became 
the most extensive manufacturers in Europe; but they, in 
their turn, while greatly enlarging their dominion, gave to 
various bodies monopoly powers, having for their object the 
prevention of intercourse between important portions of the 
world except by means of their own sliips, ports, seamen, and 
merchants. The oppressive character of this system forced 
both France and England to measures of resistance, exhibited 
in the Navigation Act of Cromwell, and the tonnage duties 
and tariff of Colbert; and the power of Holhmd began from 
that period to pass away, as that of Venice and Genoa had 
already done. In all these cases the object in view had been 
that of preventing circulation abroad, with a view to an 
increase of the socictary motion at home, and to foster cen- 
tralization by compelling commerce to pay extra taxes in the 
form of transportation ; and in all, the results had been failure 
and decline, even where the system had not led to absolute 
ruin. 



178 CHAPTER XTV. § 3. 

Among nations, as among individuals, selfisliness generally 
defeats itself. All the communities above referred to sought 
to obtain power, not by commerce with others based upon a 
great commerce among themselves, but by carrying on trade 
for them, thereby enriching themselves at others' cost. 
Trade had built up among the Flemings large fortunes, the 
possession of which but stimulated the appetite for further 
acquii^tion, while giving greater power for controlling the 
n)ovements of other nations. To that end, they sought mo- 
nopoly both at home and abroad ; but the end proved widely 
different from their expectations, their measures producing 
resistance both abroad and at home. Workmen, flying to 
England, found in Edward III. a monarch fully sensible of 
the advantages which must result from enabling the farmer 
and the artisan to take their places by each other's side, and 
one, too, both able and willing to give them complete pro- 
tection. Not only were franchises granted to them, but all 
restrictions upon domestic commerce, so far as related to the 
making of cloth, were at once repealed ; while by an Act of 
Parliament of 1337, the export of wool and the import of 
cloth were both prohibited. The effects of these measures 
we may now consider. 

§ 3. At the opening of the fourteenth century the commerce 
of England was such as indicated a very rude condition of 
its people, wool, hides, and tin, being the chief articles of 
export, and cloth, of import. The custom of foreign nations 
for raw materials was sought by means of grants of privileges 
to their merchants, while oppressive export duties threw 
upon the land-owner and his tenants the burden of the support 
of government. Sent abroad in their rudest state, their pro- 
ducts returned in the form of cloth, admitted on payment of 
a nominal duty of one per cent. Raw products were conse- 
quently cheap, while finished commodities were very dear. 

Commerce at home was impeded by numberless restric- 
tions, while the domestic market was freely opened to Flemish 
and other manufacturers who were unsparing in their efforts 
to monopolize, on one side of the channel, the purchase of 
the raw material, and on the other, the conversion of it, and 
thus to maintain the largest difference between the prices of 
the wool they bought and the cloth they had to sell. 

The power of association scarcely existed then in England, 
diversity of employment being but little known. Conse- 
quently, though wool was low in price, all articles of food 



i 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 179 

"A'ore prroatly lower, their bulk being nuich too great to 
admit of tlieir exportation to distant countries, and there 
being no market for them at home. Wool, representing food 
that had undergone a single process of manufacture, com- 
manded a price twenty times as great as did the food itself. 
The cost of transportation, therefore, being so much less, it 
could travel to a distance, whereas corn was often wasted in 
one part of the kingdom, while famine prevailed in others; 
and therefore was it that sheep and hogs constituted almost 
the entire capital of those who professed to farm the land. 

The facts here observed are precisely similar to those 
occurring in all the purely agricultural countries of the 
present hour. The cotton of India can be sent to a distance, 
because, like the English wool, it is the representative of food 
that has undergone a single change. The food of India can- 
not travel even from one part of the country to another ; and 
therefore is it that fann'nes prevail in one district while rice is 
wasted in another. The Russian wheat can with difficulty 
go abroad, but the wool can readily be sent. The corn of 
Illinois and Iowa is to so great an extent absorbed by the 
transporter, that the farmer desires to subject it to the 6rst 
rude process of manufacture by passing it through the 
stomach of the hog, and carrying it to market in the form of 
pork. That of Virginia is passed through the stomachs of 
negro men and women, and taken to market in the form of 
slaves. That of Carolina, after being digested by slaves, ig 
taken to England in the form of cotton. The necessity for 
effecting changes of place was then, as it is now^, the great 
obstacle to improvement ; and as that diminishes with tlio 
bulk of the commodities to be transported, it is not surprising 
that we find the English people taking the first step in the 
career of which the advantage was afterwards so clearly ex- 
hibited by Adam Smith, when showing how great was the 
weight of corn and wool contained in a piece of cloth, and 
how readily when they had assumed that form the two could 
be sent together throughout the world. 

§ 4. Prohibition of the export of wool and of the import 
of cloth was a measure of resistance to the monopoly of the 
Flemish manufacturers, and it tended greatly to the ))romotion 
of the domestic commerce. It went, however, too far. The 
difficulty of English corn and wool-growers consisted in the 
absence of competition for the purchase of their commodities : 
and a remedy therefor was to be found in the creation of a 



180 CHAPTER XIV. § 4. 

domestic market, while leaving untouched the export of raw 
material required for the supply of distant countries. 

What was required was the imposition of such a duty on 
foreign cloth as would have made it the interest of the weaver 
to come to the producer and there to consume his corn wliile 
converting his wool. The nation, however, being poor, and 
the ability to purchase foreign merchandise being small, while 
the king's necessities were great, the latter needed to retain 
all possible sources of revenue, chief among which was that 
resulting from the export of wool. The prohibition of that 
trade throwing it chiefly into his own hands, he profited 
largely by it. Direct commerce was, however, in some 
degree established between the producer of wool and corn, 
and the consumer of cloth ; and from that time there was a 
steady increase in the power of association, manifested by the 
growth of towns, the enfranchisement of serfs, and the grow- 
ing power of the Commons to direct the movements of the 
ship of state. Magna Charta secured the privileges of the 
aristocracy ; but the statute of 1347 laid the foundation of 
the liberties of the people by providing for the diversity of 
their employments and the development of individual facul- 
ties ; as a consequence of which, the change of system was 
followed by a rapid increase of both individual and national 
power. 

For centuries, nevertheless, England continued to import 
cloth, iron, and other manufactured goods, and to export raw 
produce, remaining, therefore, poor and weak when compared 
with other communities across the channel, in which employ- 
ments were more diversified ; and hence it is that we find the 
Dutch of that period almost monopolizing the management 
of England's commerce with the outer world. The period 
of the Protectorate, however, brought with it a successful 
effort, by means of navigation laws, at establishing direct 
commerce with foreign nations, and thus laying the founda- 
tion of Britain's present power on the ocean. Still later was 
a similar effort made to promote commerce at home by the 
adoption of measures by aid of which to bri7ig viachinenj 
and skill to the raw materials, and thus remove the necessity 
for sending abroad the bulky corn and wool. Andrew Yar 
ranton is said to have been the first to suggest, in his very 
remarkable little work entitled Englancfs Improvement by 
Sea and Land, publisiied in 1677, the measures that have 
since led to the manufacturing greatness of England. The 
nation profited of his advice, and from that time the English 



I 



I 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 18i 

Btatufre-book became more and more filled with laws havinjij 
for their object the bringing together of the farmer and the 
artisan, with a view to the production of association and com- 
bination, and thus diminishing the necessity for exhausting the 
land by the exportation of its products in their rudest state. 

§ 5. The insular position of England had given her security 
from the devastations of war to an extent unknown in any 
other part of Europe ; and thus was she prepared for the 
adoption of a S3-stem which should promote combination. 
Its growth, however, was the work of time : for centuries the 
current of raw materials had set towards the continent, and 
to change it required serious effort. Before this could be 
accomplished the English farmer had, in the gradual decline 
in the price of wheat from 43s. (Jd. per quarter, before the 
peace of Utrecht, in 1713, to 21s. 3d. in the decade ending in 
1755, full experience of the loss resulting from a dependence 
on distant markets. The product slightly exceeding the 
consumption, a small portion needed to go abroad ; and that 
the price obtained for the surplus fixes the price for the 
whole crop is well known to all who study the course of 
trade. A d^ciency to the extent of even a hundred thousand 
bushels raises the price of all to the level of that at which 
that small supply may be brought from the distant market ; 
while an excess to that extent reduces the whole to the level 
of the price at which this trivial quantity must be sold. The 
total product of wheat at that time must have been more than 
40,000,000 of bushels ; and as that grain then entered little 
into consumption compared with what it since has done, 
it is perhaps fair to place the whole production of food at 
the equivalent of 100,000,000 of bushels. Of this, about four 
per cent, constituted the surplus thrown on the markets of 
the world, depressing the prices thei-e, and in a corresponding 
degree depressing those obtained for all that was consumed 
at home ; to the injury of the land and labor of the kingdom, 
of both the farmer and the artisan, and of all but those who 
were dependent on fixed incomes for their support. 

The population was at that period but 6,000,000, of whom 
the land-owners, then numbering nearly 200,000, and their 
families, must have been about one-sixth part. Add to 
these the laborers in husbandry, and we have a very large 
proportion of the community directly dependent upon the 
success of agriculture. In their prosperity the mechanic 
was largely interested, their power to purchase the results 
IG 



182 CHAPTER XIV. § 6. 

of his skill and labor being wholly dependent upon their 
ability to sell the produce of their own. What England 
i,hen needed was direct commerce between the producer and 
consuuier at home ; in default of which the farmer found 
himself compelled to accept 21s. 2d. per quarter for his wheat, 
and corresponding prices for ail other descriptions of food, 
while exporting but four millions of quarters, and importing, 
in tiie forms of cloth and iron, perhaps thrice as much. 

Pro.:^ress was, however, being made. With the middle of 
the centuiy it was discovered that iron could be smelted by 
the help of mineral coal ; and thenceforward changes tending 
to the diversification of pursuits became numerous and rapid. 
The power of steam was discovered and applied, and tiie 
spinning-jenny was invented. These and other improve- 
ments in the processes of manufacture gave life and activity 
to the domestic market, and freed the farmer from dependence 
on the distant one, as a consequence of which the price of 
wheat had more than doubled in 1775 ; and so remained 
for twenty years, with an increase in the total return to agri- 
cultural labor that could have been but little short of 
$100,000,000. 

§ 6. So far as protection had been resorted to with a view 
to enable the farmers to call to their aid the foreign skill and 
machinery required for fitting their products for consumption, 
it was certainly right. It relieved them from the tax of 
transportation, promoted the diversification of employment 
and tlie development of intellect, and tended to give to society 
that form in which strength and beauty are most combined ; 
and therefore was it that the years immediately preceding the 
French Revolution exhibited so great a tendency towards 
such a reform in Parliament as should give a fairer represen- 
tation of the various portions into which society had become 
divided. 

Had that been the limit of the movement — had the policy 
of England looked solely to the emancipation of her own 
people from dependence on the casualties of distant markets 
— had her statesmen been governed by that great funda- 
mental law of Christianity which requires of us to respect the 
rights of others as carefully as we desire that the}' should 
respect our own — all would have been well ; and the doctrines 
of over population, of the necessity for '! a cheap and abundant 
supply of labor," of the expediency of expelling a kindred 
nation with a view to supply its place by "one more docilo 



OF CriRMTCAh AND MECHANICAL CriANGES. 183 

.u'(l more serviceable" that could "sulimit to a mastei'' — ihc 
^'octrines, in short, of modern political economy — would have 
remained to this hour unheard of. 

Unfortunately, there has always and everywhere existed a 
disposition to monopolize the knowledge by means of whicii 
progress has been attained ; and the more free the people 
who have desired the monopoly the more unscrupulous are 
certain to have been the means employed for securing it. 
It is, therefore, no matter of surprise, that to the freest people 
of Europe we owe the invention of the oppressive and ex- 
hausting system described in former chapters. 

Nothing comparable with it in its power of evil has ever 
been devised. Invasion of armies is attended with waste of 
property, destruction of life, and suspension of commerce ; 
but with the return of peace men can again combine their 
efforts, and in a few years all is again nearly as it had been 
before. Such, however, is not the case with the substitution 
of trade for commerce. Under it the power of association 
dies away, intellect declines in its development, and man 
gradually loses all tlie power over nature which lie before had 
gained. The one is a sudden shock from which, with care, 
the patient may recover ; whereas, the other consists in 
opening the veins and permitting the life's blood slowly 
to ebb away, rendering recovery fron^ day to day more diffi- 
cult, and closing at length in material and moral death. No 
country in Europe has suffered so much from the evils of war 
as Belgium, yet has it always ranked among tlie most pros- 
perous of tliem all. Of all, the only ones that have for 
centuries been unprofaned by a hostile foot are the British 
Lslands, yet there it was that the Malthusian theory was 
invented, and in one of them is found the great treasury of 
facts by which it is supported. France has suffered heavily 
from war, yet she advances in wealth and power because she 
l)roniotes commerce. Portugal, except in the closing years 
of the wars of the French Revolution, has long been almost 
exempt from war, yet she declines in strength because wholly 
subject to the exhaustive influences of trade. 

§ T. Tlie more rapid the circulation in a community the 
greater is the power at its command"; but whether or not 
mankind shall profit by this power, is wholly dependent upon 
the spirit in wliich it is exercised. Wrongly guided, its 
capacity for evil is as great as it is for good ; and thu:? 
llie grievousness of the tyranny has everywhere been in the 



184 CHAPTER XIV. § 7. 

direct ratio of the freedom of the people by whom the power 
was exercised. A people tyrant is a hydra-headed monster, 
compared with which an aristocratic one is harmless. 

The English system looked to diminishing the bulk of 
their own products; but it also sought to prevent any such 
diminution in that of the products of other countries. Di- 
rected to the extension of commerce at home, it was directed 
also to the annihilation of commerce among the people of 
other communities ; and there it was, as has been already 
said, that it went far beyond any other that had been before 
devised. Irish cloths had been celebrated in the days when 
England exported all her wool, and imported all her cloth ; 
yet we find the latter availing herself of all the power at her 
command to suppress the Irish manufacture, and compel the 
wool of Ireland to pass through the mills of England before 
the Irish people themselves could use it. Had she simply 
prohibited the manufacture, leaving the wool-growers to seek 
a market where they would, she would thus have greatly 
augmented the cost of transpoi'tation while diminishing the 
power of association and promoting the exhaustion of the 
land ; but to this was added a prohibition of commerce with 
the world except through English ports ; and such was the 
policy afterwards adopted towards all the British colonies. 

Having thus acquired wealth and power, Britain next 
sought to carry out this policy in reference to independent 
nations, and hence the passage of various laws, from 1765 to 
1799, prohibiting the export of either machinery or artisans, 
which laws were maintained in force until 1825. Their 
object was that of compelling all the rude produce of the 
earth to come to England, there to be subjected to the 
processes required for fitting it for consumption. Thence it 
might go abroad, to be exchanged for sugar, tea, or coffee ; 
but even those articles were, as far as possible, required to 
pass thi'ough English ports; and by means of English ships. 
British policy looked thus to making every country outside 
of England a purely agricultural one ; but, were all the. com- 
munities of the world reduced to that condition, each and 
every of them, and each and every of its parts, would be com- 
pelled to produce all the commodities required for consump- 
tion, as of commerce there could be little or none, abroad or 
at home. To enable distant commerce to exist, the bulk of 
commodities must be reduced, and in the effort to accomplish 
that object diversity of employment is necessarily produced. 
That diversity having arisen in England, all her efforts were 



CF niEMlCAI, AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 



185 



now given 10 prt'ventiiio- its appearance in any other pait of 
the world, ana tnus to establisii the entire supremacy of the 
trader and transporter over the producer. 

So oppressive a system as this had never before been im- 
agined. It sought everywhere to cause the bulky w^ool and 
cotton to travel thousands of miles in quest of the little spindle 
and loom, thus maintaining the size of all commodities at the 
largest, and contracting to the smallest the aperture through 
which they were required to pass, as here is represented :— 



Cotton corn, sugar, wool, and other raw materials of tho workl. 




Cloth and iron for the world 



The quantity being great and the aperture naiTow it fol- 
lowed that the friction w^as immense, and that the greater 
part of the produce disappeared under tlie process to wdiich 
it was thus subjected. The larger the crop the higher were 
freights, and the larger the charges for storage and insurance, 
but the smaller became the prices. As a consequence of this 
most unnatural process farmers and planters were forced to 
deprecate the extension of production, for to them it was 
fraught with ruin. Small crops, giving low freights and 
charges, and high prices in the distant market, were ))rofit- 
al»Ie. whereas, large ones were injurious to all engaged in the 
culture of the earth. 

Until now, increase of population had been looked upon as 
an element of strength ; but as the British system came fairly 
into operation the modes of thought were changed, ami 
growth of numbers came to be held an evidence of weakness 
rather than of strength. IIow far an unsound and unjust 
system of policy tended to produce this change of doctrine, 
will Ije examined in another chapter. 



186 CHAPTER XV. § 1. 



CHAPTER XY. 

OP CnEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES IN THE FORM OP 
MATTER — CONTINUED. 

J I. Errors of the British system obvious to Adam Smith. His caution to his countrymes 
in regard to the dangers necessarily incident to an exclusive dependence upon trade. 
Hie advice neglected, and hence the growth of pauperism and the origination of the 
theorj' of over-population. 

g 2. Warlike and monopolistic character of the system. 

g 3. By destroying among other people the power to sell their labor it destroys compe- 
tition for the purchase of British labor. Teaching, that to enable capital to obtain a 
fair remuneration labor must be kept down, it tends to the production of slavery 
everywhere. 

g 4. Approximation in the prices of raw materials and finished commodities the one 
essential characteristic of civilization. British system looks to the prevention of that 
approximation. Its tendency towards reduction of other communities to a state of 
barbarism. 

g 5. Stoppage of the cii'culation a necessary consequence of the predominance of the 
British system. Disappearance of the small proprietors of England. Condition of the 
agricultural laborer. 

g 6. The higher the organization the more perfect the power of self-government. That 
power diminishing among the people, and in the government, of England. Gulf dividing 
the higher and lower classes a constantly widening one. 

ii 7. Necessity for careful study of the system under which originated the theory of over- 
population. Inevitable tendency of th^ Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine that of making 
slavery the ultimate condition of the laborer. The system of the British school a retro- 
grade one. Had its origin in a retrograde policy. Sees in man a mere instrument to be 
used by trade. 

§ 1. The Wealth of Nations was first published in 1Y76 ; 
and its essential object was that of enforcing upon the 
author's countrymen the great truth, that trade and manufac- 
tures were useful only so far as they contributed to the devel- 
opment of the treasures of the earth, and to the promotion of 
commerce. Adam Smith saw that the colonial sj'stem, look- 
ino- exclusively to trade, tended unnaturally to increase the 
jjroportion of the British population employed in the work 
of exchange and transportation, thereby raising up " a nation 
of mere shopkeepers," and forcing industry to run principally 
in one great channel, instead of in a number of smaller ones ; 
and he warned his countrymen of the dangers they thus 
incurred. Great, however, as were, even then, those dangers, 
England was but entering on the effort to reduce the world 
at large under the system so long imposed upon her colonial 
d( pendents. The interdiction of the emigration of artisans 
dated then back but a single decade, and the battle of Piassy, 
by which theBritish power in India was established, was then 
ijot twenty years old. Five years later came the prohibition 



OF cnr,MirAL axd mechanical ctiaxoes. 1*7 

of the export of silk and woollen machinery ; and l)efore the 
close of the century the policy had been perfected by the 
extension of this prohibition to all other descriptions of 
machinery, as well as to artisans by whom it might be made, 
and to colliers. 

Prior to 1791, tlic price of wheat having more than doubled 
as a consequence of the creation of a great domestic market, 
there had gradually arisen an import of foreign food for 
the prevention of which the agricultural interest procured, in 
that year, the passage of a law limiting the price at which it 
might be entered. During all this time the policy denounced 
bv Dr. Smith had been still more fully carried out. English 
armies had been steadily engaged in India in extending trade 
at the expense Gf commerce. Trade had stirred up strife 
between the mother country and her American colonies, and 
thus produced the war of 1776. The class living by traffic 
and transportation had constantly increased in numbers and 
in power, but it was reserved for the war of 1793 — a war 
largely due to the thirst for "ships, colonies, and commerce" 
— to see it attain its full dimensions. Taxation grew with 
great rapidity, and with it the splendor of bankers' and 
traders' fortunes. The price of food advanced while that of 
labor remained stationary, and the effects of this soon 
exhibited themselves in the rapid growth of the almshouse 
population. 

Pauperism prevailed to an extent before unknown ; and 
then it was that Mr. Malthus furnished the world with those 
'' Prhiciples of Population,^^ by help of which his readers 
might, as they were assured, understand the causes of " the 
poverty and misery observable among the lower classes of 
the people in every nation," and of "the repeated failures in 
the efforts of the higher classes to relieve them." Dr. Smith 
luid seen that the policy based upon cheap labor and cheap 
raw materials was the work of those "higher classes;" and 
■upon them he had urged the abandonment of a system which, 
as he so clearly saw, tended towards the pauperism and 
enslavement of those who labored. Mr. Malthus, on the con- 
trary, found the cause in a great law of God, by means of 
which he relieved those classes from all responsibility for that 
poverty, and enabled them to close their purses, and even 
their hearts, against the commonest dictates of charity, com- 
forting themselves with the reflection that if they should in 
any manner "stand between the error and its consequences," 
or "intercept the penalty" allixed to the procreation of their 



188 CHAPTER XV. § 2. 

species by those who had not accumulated the means of sut>- 
port for children — which penalty was poverty, wretchedness, 
and death — they would but " perpetuate the sin" and thereby 
become themselves participants in the crime ! This theory 
was precisely what was needed to prevent the adoption of 
any of the remedial measures proposed by Adam Smith, 
proving, as it professed to do, that pauperism existed in 
obedience to the laws of God, and that therefore the rich 
might safely and conscientiously " eat, drink, and be merry" 
though surrounded by poverty, wretchedness, disease, and 
death 1 

§ 2. The system which looked to foreign trade being more 
extensively carried out with each successive year, peace 
rarely existed throughout the British Empire. The war then 
existing was followed by one with these IJnited States ; since 
which there have been wars for the annexation of Scinde and 
Affghanistan, of Ava and the Punjaub — for the maintenance 
of the opium trade — for the extension of power in South 
Africa — for the development of new avenues for trade through- 
out the Turkish Empire, and others still, — all having for 
their essential object the cheapening of the raw products of 
the earth, and of the labors of the man by whom it is tilled. 

For the attainment of that end the union with Ireland was 
perfected, and her manufactures annihilated. With that end 
in view the people of India were required to receive the cotton 
goods of England duty free, while prevented from procuring 
more efficient machinery from abroad, and taxed to an unheard 
of extent for the use of that which they already possessed. 
For this, Gibraltar has been, and yet is, maintained as a 
smuggling depot against Spain, while other colonies have 
been used for smuggling goods into various countries of 
Europe and America, the smuggler having come to be re- 
garded as "the great reformer of the age." For this, have 
been formed combinations among the masters to keep down 
the price of labor at home, and to discourage the growth of 
manufactures in all the other countries of the world. That 
all these are really acts of war, is shown in the following 
extract from an official document first published in 1854, by 
order of the British House of Commons : — 

" The laboring classes generally, in the manufacturing dis- 
tricts of this country, especially in the .iron and coal districts, 
are very little aware of the extent to which they are often 
indebted for being employed at all to the immense losses 



a 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 189 

which their employers voluntarily incur in bad times in order 
to destroy foreign co)npetition, and to gain and keep posseS' 
aion of foreign markels. Authentic instances are well known 
of employers having in such times carried on their works at 
a loss amounting in the aggregate to three or four hundred 
thousand pounds in the course of three or four years. If the 
efforts of those who encourage the combinations to restrict 
the amount of labor and to produce strikes were to be suc- 
cessful for any length of time, the great accumulations of 
capital could no longer be made v:hich enable a few of the 
most wealthy 'capitalids to overwhelm all foreign competition 
in times of great dejiression, and thus to clear the way for 
the whole trade to step in when prices revive, and to carry 
on the business before foreign capital r'an again accumulate 
to such an extent as to be able to establish competition in 
prices with any chance of success. The large capitals of 
this country are the great instruments of warfare (if the 
expression may be allowed) against the competing capital of 
foreign countries, and are the most essential instruments now 
remaining by which our manufacturing supremacy can be 
maintained ; the other elements, cheap labor, abundance of 
raw materials, means of communication, and skilled labor, 
being rapidly in process of being analizeil." 

The system here described is very properly characterized 
as a " warfare," and for what purpose, and against whom is 
it waged ? It is a war to compel the people of all other 
lands to confine themselves to agriculture, to prevent the 
diversification of employment in other countries, to retard 
the development of intellect, to palsy every movement else- 
where looking to the utilization of the mineral tx-easures of 
the earth, to diminish the demand for labor, and to produce 
pauperism both at home and abroad. 

§ 3. It is said that this system is beneficinl to the people 
of England. Were this so, it would establish the lamentable 
fact that nations could, in accordance witli a divine law, 
thrive by the perpetration of injustice. Happily no such law 
exists. Nations can permanentiv prosper only by means of 
obedience to the golden rule of Christianity ; and when they 
fail to yield it. Nemesis never fails to claim her rights. That 
she has so done on this occasion, and that the pauperism of 
England is due to failure in this respect the reader may per- 
haps be satisfied after a brief examination of the effects of tho 
Bjstem upon the condition of the English laborer. 



190 CHAPTER XV. § 3. 

Tlie manufactures of Ireland declined from the date of the 
Union in 1801, and the Irish people were forced to seek em 
ployment in the field. Production being thus increased while 
the home consumption was being diminished, the exports of 
wheat rose in thirty years from 300,000 quarters to 2,500,000, 
with a fall of price from SOs. to 52s. This reduction miglit 
seem to have been an adv-^antage, but unfortunately, it was 
accompanied by still greater cheapness of human power. 
Millions of the Irish people being totally idle, Great Britain 
was, says a British journal, "flooded with crowds of half- 
clad Celts, reducing the standard of living" among English 
laborers. Labor, therefore, fell more rapidly than food, and 
one-ninth of the total population of England was reduced to 
pauperism — the poor tax rising in thirty years from twenty- 
five to forty-five millions of dollars, the price of wheat at the 
same time falling no less than forty per cent. Food was low, 
but wages were so very low, that the laborer could not pur- 
chase. Labor was low, but food was so cheap that the farmer 
was unable to pay wages and rent. Manufactures, too, suf- 
fered, for the decline of wagts in other pursuits was accom- 
panied by a diminution in the power to purchase cloth. All 
thus suffered alike. The destruction in Ireland of the home 
market for food and labor, consequent upon the annihilation 
of Irish commerce, had produced the same effect in England. 
Did the great manufacturer profit? On the contrary, his 
market in England had been lessened, while that of Ireland 
had almost totally failed ; and thus had a nation been almost 
annihilated with no profit to those who had done the work, 
but with the most serious loss to all, resulting from the fact 
that the standard of living and of morals had been greatly 
reduced ; that the disease of over-population had more widely 
spread ; and that the gulf dividing the higher and lower 
classes of English society had greatly widened. 

It might, however, be supposed that the other markets 
which had been acquired were of a character to make some 
amends for these losses by English land and labor. That we 
may determine that question, we now turn to the trade with 
the hundred millions of India. The export of cotton yarn 
and cloth to that country, at the breaking out of the cotton 
rebellion of our Southern States scarcely exceeded 10,000,000 
of pounds, while the import of India cotton was little more 
than 80,000,000, and yet this constituted almost the only 
item of the trade with that country that was of any essential 
importance. The quantity of cotton then converted into 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 191 

cioth in the little town of Lowell, with its 13,000 operatives, 
having been 40,000,000 pounds, it followed that two such 
little places could perform all the labor required for the trade 
for which England had been indebted to the destruction of 
the vast cotton manufacture and the great domestic com- 
merce of India, a measure that, according to Sir Robert Peel 
himself, had been productive of an amount of misery and 
destitution wholly " unparalleled in the history of commerce." 

For its accomplishment it had been needed that English 
children of the most tender age should be kept employed for 
twelve or fourteen hours a day, and spend the Sunday morn- 
ing ^n cleaning the machinery, and that men, women, and 
children should be brutified by poverty to an extent scarcely 
possible to be conceived. For the present maintenance of 
the system it is required, as has been recently shown in a 
debate in the House of Commons, that men, women, and 
children work from sixteen to twenty hours per day in bleach- 
ing establishments maintained at so high a heat that the 
laborers' feet are blistered, and in which destruction of life is 
so certain, and so rapid, that tiiey are commonly known by 
the style and title of " wasting shops." 

The student of Indian history is shocked when he reads the 
account of the invasion of Nadir Shah, closing with the 
plunder of Delhi, and the massacre of 100,000 of its inhabi- 
tants ; and yet how utterly insignificant was the loss thus 
caused compared with that resulting from the destruction of 
a manufacture that but half a century since gave employment 
to the people of whole provinces, one, the account of whose 
progress included "no less than a description of the lives of 
half the inhabitants of Hindostan !" How utterly insignifi- 
cant is it when compared with the daily and hourly waste of 
capital now resulting from the total absence of all demand for 
physical or mental capacity, with the decline and death of 
commerce, the ruin of Dacca and other flourishing cities, tho 
abandonment of rich lands, the exiiaustion of the soil, the 
resolution of society into a body of grasping money-lenders 
on the one hand and wretched cultivators on the other, and 
the inauguration of famine and pestilence as the chronic 
diseases of a people inferior to none in moral and intellectual 
qualities, and embracing a tenth of the population of the 
globe. The booty obtained on that occasion was estimated 
at five hundred millions of d "liars, but how infinitely greater 
is the annual tax imposed on the people of Hindostan by a 
?ystem that forbids the development of human faculties, and 



192 CHAPTER XV. § 4. 

the existence of that commerce to which alone they might 
look for the power of accumulation. Greatly superior as is 
the loss inflicted, as greatly inferior is the gain to those by 
whom the loss has been caused. The Shah did obtain an 
enormous amount of plunder; but the English people have 
gained nothing but the privilege of employing themselves as 
transporters, spinners, and weavers of a trivial quantity of 
cotton ; a privilege obtained at the cost of the rights of a 
hundred millions of people abroad, and of the establishment 
at home of the doctrine that " to enable capital to obtain a 
fair remuneration, the price of labor must be kept down," in 
other words, that men mvst be enslaved. 

Turning to Portugal, to the West Indies, and to Turkey, 
we see everywhere the same result, the power to purchase 
the products of English labor having perished with the power 
to sell their own. All of these countries are paralyzed ; and 
Britain now presents to view the extraordinary spectacle oi 
a nation possessing more than any other the power tj 
render service to mankind, yet surrounded by colonies and 
allies, all of whom, with the exception of the gold-producing 
Australia, are passing slowly, but certainly, towards entire 
inanition ; while she is exhausting her energies in the cease- 
less effort to extend throughout the world the system by 
means of which they have been ruined. 

§ 4. Approximation in the prices of the raw material and 
the finished commodity is the one essential characteristic of 
civilization, it being the manifestation of a diminution of the 
obstacles standing in the way of association. As the mill 
comes nearer to the farm, the price of wheat approaches nearer 
to that of flour. As the processes of tanning are improved, 
the price of leather declines, with increase in that of hides. 
Kags increase in price while paper declines ; raw silk ad- 
vances, while silk goods tend steadily downward. Look 
where we may we see that under a natural system the rude 
products of the earth tend to increase in their power to com- 
mand the precious metals in exchange, while finished com- 
modities tend as steadily to decline in price, thus enabling 
all, whether producers of corn or gold, of wool or silver, to 
profit by, and rejoice in, the constantly increasing power ot 
their fellow-men to command the services of nature. Among 
communities, as among individuals, the- harmony of all real 
and, pe?'manent interests is perfect. 

The British system looks, however, in a direction directly 



OF CIIEMJCAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. ] 93 

opposite to tliis, hcinp: based upon tlie idea of clieapeninjr all 
the raw materials of manufacture, labor included. From 1,S30 
to 1835 tluiaverageexport of American cotton was 320,000,000 
pounds, worth about $35,000,000, and capable of commandinj^ 
in Liverpool 18,500,000 pieces of cloth, or about 1,100,000 
tons of iron. In 1845 and 1846, the average price being 
6J cents, a similar quantity would yield but $20,000,000. 
IJnt the prices of cloth and iron had risen, so that for the 
same quantity of cotton the planter could have but 12,500,000 
pieces of cloth. 

In the first period, the planter had thirty-four per cent, of 
his cotton returned to him in the form of cloth ; but in the 
second, only twenty-four per cent. The lower the price of 
cloth, and the higher that of food and cotton, the greater must 
be the tendency toward freedom. The higher that of cloth 
and the lower those of food and cotton, the greater must be 
the tendency toward slavery. The British system tends to 
cheapen the raw materials of cloth and to enhance the diffi- 
cult}^ of obtaining cloth itself; and thus does it look in a 
direction precisely opposite to that of advancing civilization ; 
and hence it is that it has furnished the idea of over-popula- 
tion, an idea inseparably connected with that of the ultimate 
enslavement of man. Ilence, too, it has been that under the 
system so generally pursued throughout these United States 
— a sj'stem which, in opposition to the teachings of Adam 
Smith, has looked to separating the producer and the con- 
sumer, with further widening of the differences between raw 
products and finished merchandise — the slave power has, 
until now, so steadil}' grown in strength. 

§ 5. Stoppage of circulation, as fatal to the social as it is 
to the physical body, is the natural tendency of the prevalence 
of the British system. Therefore it has been that Portugal 
and Ireland have so steadily declined, and therefore it is, 
that the advance of British pauperism keeps steady pace with 
the decline in the home demand for the labor power of Ireland 
and India, and of all other countries subjected to the British 
power. 

Most unwilling to admit, or even to see, these facts, the 
advocates of the cheap labor system insisted upon charg- 
ing the growing pauperism to the account of the corn-law 
system. The land-owners believing, with Adam Smith, that 
" if the whole produce of America" in food were forced into 
the English market, it would be " a great discouragement 
17 



194 CHAPTER XV. § 5. 

to agriculture," had endeavored to shield themselves against 
the operation of the mercantile system by the passage of 
laws to prevent the importation of food except under certain 
circumstances ; and to those laws was now ascribed the 
existing wretchedness, the people being assured that their 
repeal would be followed by an increased demand for labor, 
and low prices for food. 

The laws were repealed, but the effect proved to be directly 
the reverse : circulation diminished still more rapidly, and 
the rural population fled the kingdom in increased numbers; 
while of those who remained, Mr. Cobden now says, that 
" never within the recollection of living man was the farm 
laborer's condition so bad as at present" — that he does not 
know " a Protestant country in which the masses of tlie 
people are so illiterate" — that "the condition of the English 
peasantry has no parallel on the face of the earth" — and that 
there is no other in which it is " so entirely divorced from the 
land." In the days of Adam Smith, the land-owners of 
England were about 200,000 ; now they but little exceed 
30,000. Such has been the result of the steady maintenance 
of the system so vehemently denounced by him — a system 
whose tendency has been that of sacrificing the domestic 
commerce at the shrine of foreign trade. 

With the growth of ansdciation, the power of the middle- 
man decreases, while that of the laborer rises ; with constant 
tendency towards equality in the conditions of men. With 
the growth of trade, inequality steadily increases, the laborer 
losing power over himself, while the trader acquires it. 

" The manufacturing districts," says a recent Avriter, " pre- 
sent the peculiar spectacle of a small and very wealthy class 
standing apart on a great height, far above the level of the 
rest of the population. The connection between the two has 
never yet had time to become clothed with the soft and 
warm interlacement of affectionate moral association." " Tlie 
work carried on by the two parties is essentially one of co- 
operation ; but their moral attitude toward each other is 
much more one of hostility than of friendship." Another 
writer informs us that "mutual defiance is the common atti- 
tude of employer and employed, especially in Scotland, where 
the feeling of personal independence is stronger and keener 
than in England." The gulf dividing the higher and lower 
classes of society is an ever-widening one, the immense 
fortunes acquired by bankers and traders being in the direct 
' ratio of the poverty of the working classes. " The peasant," 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 195 

says ?v[i'. Kay. "knows tliat be must die in tlie same position 
ill vviiich he was born.'' After careful examination of the 
condition of the people of Continental Europe, he assures 
his readers that the peasantry of England "are more 
ignorayt. more demoralized, less capable of helping them- 
selves, and more pauperized, than thdse of any other country 
of Europe, if we except Russia, Turkey, South Jtaly, and 
some parts of the Austrian Empire." 

Under such circumstances the middle class tends to pass 
away, and its condition is well expressed by the term now so 
frequently used, "the uneasy class." There is a perpetual 
strife for life, each man " endeavoring to snatch the bread 
from his neighbor's mouth." The atmosphere of England is 
one of gloom. Every one is anxious about the future, for 
himself or his children, and this is a necessary consequence 
of the system that looks to increasing the difficulties stand- 
ing in the way of commerce. 

§ 6 The higher the organization the more perfect is the 
development of the various faculties, and the more complete 
the power of self-government — and this is as true of socie- 
ties as of individuals. The more perfect the power of asso- 
ciation, and the more complete the development of the 
various faculties of its members, the more entire is its power 
to control its own action ; and the le.ss is it liable to outside 
influence. In England, as we see, centralization constantly 
increases as the power of local self-government tends to dis- 
appear. Hence we remark a growing weakness, indicated 
by an increased necessity for modifying her policy in obe- 
dience to the dictates of other nations. The change in the 
navigation laws was forced upon her by the resistance 
of the United States, and that of Prussia and other powers. 
So, too, with regard to protection. For seventy years, down 
to 1819, the duties on foreign manufactures had been steadily 
increased. In that and the five following years, several 
nations of Europe adopted measures of resistance, while in 
the last of them was passed the first American tariff ba.^ed 
on the idea of bring-inj? nearer the farmer and the artisan, and 
thus approximating the prices of raw materials and finished 
goods. To this was due the change of measures commenced 
by Mr. Huskisson in 1825, a change, however, looking steadily 
towards the cheapening of all raw materials of manufacture, 
whether corn, cotton, or labor. The successful resistance 
of Russia, the formation of tlu; German ZoUverein, and the 



196 CHAPTER XV. § 6. 

American tariff of 1842, were the causes of the total cliange 
of policy that occurred in 1846. So, likewise, with the sugar 
duties. The emancipated negroes of Jamaica had been 
assured of protection against slave-grown sugar, yet Brazil 
compelled a violation of the well-understood agreement. 

These changes are said, however, to have been made in 
deference to the advancing spirit of the age. Were this so. a 
similar spirit might be expected in other directions. Nothing 
can be more unjust than the tax imposed on all the corres- 
pondence between America and Continental Europe, yet it is 
persisted in, in spite of all remonstrances. The people of the 
West India Islands have for years petitioned in vain for such 
an alteration in the duties as would enable them to refine their 
own sugar. The British colonies of the continent and the 
islands recently desired to establish between themselves 
perfect reciprocity, abolishing all duties upon their respective 
productions ; and in so doing only sought to carry into full 
effect the views so strenuously urged upon the government 
of the United States in regard to the — so-called — Reciprocity 
Treaty, then just made with Canada. Upon submitting the 
question, however, to the home government, the answer was 
that " it would be inconsistent with the imperial policy of 
free trade !"' 

The Spanish people find themselves greatly aggrieved by 
the use of Gibraltar as a smuggling depot, yet is there no 
change made in that respect, although when the place' was 
ceded, it was a part of the treaty stipulations that it never 
should be used for such a purpose. Spanish commerce is 
thus sacrificed to the promotion of British trade. The people 
of China being forced, in spite of the opposition of their 
government, to receive from fifteen to twenty millions of dol- 
lars' worth of opium annually, the result is seen in growing 
intemperance and an enormous waste of life ; yet Hong Kong 
is retained as a necessary appendage to the Indian Empire, 
because "expediency" justifies the carrying out of measures 
utterly unjustifiable on the ground of " right." Such being 
the course of proceeding toward the weaker communities of 
the earth, the adoption of any other toward the stronger ones 
can be attributed only to a diminution of power to pursue that 
which has so long been practised. 

Action and reaction are equal and opposite, the ball that 
stops another in its motion being retarded, if not arrested, in 
its own. So is it with communities, commerce at home sul 
fering from every injury they inflict upon commerce abroad 



OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHANGES. 197 

Tile real interests of all are to be promoted by every measure 
that tends to increase the powder of association in the bosom 
of every other ; thereby increasing the value of man, dim- 
inishing the value of the commodities required for his use, 
facilitating the development of intellect, and thus enabling 
men more and more to combine their efforts for obtaining tliat 
power over nature which constitutes wealth ; and therefoic 
is it that an enlightened self-interest w^ould prompt each and 
all to carry into the management of public affairs the same 
epirit that should animate every Christian in his dealings 
with his fellow-men.* 

§ t. The theor\'- of over-population having originated in 
England, as also the supporting one of Mr. Ricardo in rela- 
tion to the occupation of the earth, it has been right to stud}"" 
carefully the English system, to ascertain how far its peculiar 
policy has tended to produce such serious ernu* on the part 
of her economists. If the doctrines of the English school are 
right, then the all-wise Creator has made a serious blunder ; 
having established slavery as the ultimate condition of a vast 
majority of the human race. If, on the contrary, they are 
wrong, then is freedom the ultimate lot of man ; and then are 
there found throughout the natural laws regulating the social 
system, the same order, beauty, and harmony of arrangement 
which we aee prevailing everywhere else throughout the 
organic and inorganic world. One of these thingH is absolufely 
and universally true, the other is absolutely and universally 
false. 

Modern political economy, so justly named " the dismal 
science," arose out of this attempt to account for facts exhib- 
ited throughout the British Empire. Retrograde throughout, 
it requires that we should wholly ignore the existence of an 
all-wise and benevolent Deity, and put our trust in a Being 
by whom have been instituted great natural laws in virtue of 
which men shall necessarily and " regularly die of want." 

Retrograde throughout, it teaches : — 

That, in the early stages of society, as the first miserable 
tools are obtained by means of which to work, men are 

* The hesitating and unsteady policy of Britain in reference 
to American difficulties of the three past years, and more recently 
in regard to those of Denmark and Germany, may here be cited in 
proof of the great truth that the power of self-direction declines 
with every increase in the necessity for dependence upon trade .m.l 
transportation. 



198 CHAPTER XV. § 7. 

enabled to compel tlie earth to yield Zort/pr rewards to labor; 
but that, as soon a-s they " have applied themselves to culti- 
vation with any energy, and have brought to it any tolerable 
tools," a new law supervenes, in virtue of which the return 
to labor becomes yearly smaller than before : 

That, although progress toward civilization has everywhere 
been marked by an increase in the power of man over matter, 
there exist "fixed and permanent causes" why matter must 
everywhere, and under all circumstances, obtain greater 
power over man : 

That, though the value of man has everywhere increased 
as the value of the commodities required for his use has 
diminished, yet the true road to progress is to be found in the 
direction of increased use for sliips and wagons, because this 
causes the greatest increase in the value of those com- 
modities : 

That, although men have everywhere become more free as 
employments have become n)ore diversified, the true road to 
progress lies in the division of nations into agricultural and 
manufacturing ones, the single workshop being thousands of 
miles distant from the places at which the materials are 
produced : 

That, although man has always thriven in the precise ratio 
in which the price of the raw material has approximated to 
that of the commodity manufactured therefrom, his further 
progress is to be increased by the adoption of a policy looking 
to cheapening the raw materials and increasing the quantity 
thereof required to be given for the finished article : 

That, although man has always acquired value with the 
growth of commerce, and with decline in the necessity for 
trade and transportation, — yet his condition must be im- 
proved by establishing the supremacy of trade : 

That, although progress has always been marked by increase 
in the power of labor over capital, — yet it is now required 
that "labor should be abundant and cheap" in order that it 
may be kept "sufficiently under the control of capital." 

Such being the tendency of all its teachings, it is no matter 
of surprise that modern English political economy sees in 
man only an instrument to be used by trade ; that it repu- 
diates all the distinctive qualities of man, and limits itself 
to those that he holds in common with the beast of burden 
or of prey ; and that it (iepies that the Creator meant that 
every man should have his place at the great table which he 
had spread for all his children. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 199 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN FORM. 

TI. — Of Vital Changes. 

2 1. Irregularity in the demmd for the powers of the early settler, and consequent waste 
of force. Economy of force resviltiug from increased ability to coutmaiid the services of 
nature. The more perfect the power of association, the greater is the economy of human 
force. 

J 2. The greater that economy the larger is the proportion of the labor employed that 
may be given to the development of the powers of the eaith, and towards the creation 
of a scientific agriculture. JJitfiuulty of combination among a purely agricultural people. 
Slavery of the laborer its necessary consequence. 

53. The farmer near to market always making a macliine; the one distant from it, 
always destroying one. ^^■ith the one, lab^r and its j)roducts are diiily more and more 
economized. W ith the other, the waste increases fiom day to day — man's progress, in 
whatsoever direction, being one of constant acceleration. Population makes the food 
come fiom the rich soils, while depopulation drives them back to the poor ones. 

J 4. Gambling character of the labors of the field where the market is distant. Dinriuu- 
tion of risk resulting from the a|)proximati.iu of the consumer and the producer. The 
labor given to the work of conversion so mucli saved that would otherwise be wasted. 
Six'ial phenomena observed in Ireland, India, and other Countries, in which the consumer 
and producer are becoming more widely separated. 

§ 5. British system looks to the separation of the consumers and producers of the world — 
to the consequent destruction of agriculture — and to the elevation of trade at the o.\pense 
of commerce. Hence it is, that it has given rise to the theory of over-population. 
Resistance thereto, by all the advancing communities of the world. 

§ 1. The early settler — tlie Crusoe of our island — depend- 
ent on his hands alone, is forced to exhaust his powers in 
traveling over extensive surfaces in quest of game ; and it is 
only occasionally that he has the opportunity of applying his 
labors even to the simple work of appropriation. Jn time, 
however, having made a bow and arrows and thus secured 
the aid of certain of the natural forces, he obtains larger and 
more regular supplies of food ; and in return to a diminished 
proportion of his time and labor. His powers being thus 
economized, he is enabled to apply a larger proportion to the 
iiiiginentation of his capital — to increasing his supplies of 
arrows — to the making of a boat — or to the construction of a 
hut. Each and every of these changes being attended by 
further diminution in the effort required for effecting changes 
of place, while increasing that wliich may be given to other 
employments, there is thus produced a continuity in the 
demand for the force resulting from the consumption of food ; 
with consequent economy of power, greatly facilitating the 
further accumulation of capital. 



200 CHAPTER XVI. § 1. 

The cost to a community of maintaining a man in a 6tat«? 
of perfect efficiency for mental and physical effort is the 
same, precisely, whether his powers be wasted or reproduc- 
tively applied. He must eat, be clothed, and be protected from 
the weather; and must therefore consume a quantity of 
capital, which is thus withdrawn from the common stock. 
Although withdrawn and consumed it is not, however, 
destroyed ; it reappears in a higher form, the food having 
become man, the being made in the likeness of his Creator, 
and capable of directing the forces of nature for the accom- 
plishment of his purposes. The community thus becomes 
from hour to hour more wealthy than before ; provided al- 
ways, that the capital, thus reproduced, be so directed tliat 
its consumption shall be in itself an act of further reproduc- 
tion. The power of man to change the forms of matter so 
as to fit it to serve his purposes, greatly exceeds the demand 
of the animal man for food and clothing ; and all the difference 
between the quantity of things consumed and the quantity 
produced, is so much added to the general wealth. Each of 
its individuals, therefore, is capable of adding largely to the 
common stock ; and whether he shall do so or not, is depen- 
dent altogether on the existence of a prompt demand on the 
spot for the services he is prepared to render. Labor-power 
is, of all commoditie-H, the mod difficult to be tr an f^f erred, and 
the most perishable ; for, if not put to use on the instant of 
its production it is lost forever. Where there is a regular 
demand for it communities rapidly increase in wealth and 
power, but where there is not, they decline with even more 
rapidity. 

Commerce, association, and society being, as the reader has 
already seen, but different modes of expressing the same idea 
— and all the power of man for controlling the forces of nature 
being consequent on the existence of the power of combina- 
tion — it follows, necessarily, that the more perfect the com- 
merce the more rapid will be the circulation ; the more instant 
will be the demand for human force; the greater will l)e tlie 
returns to labor; and the larger will be the p7'oportion borne 
by the things produced to the things consumed. To the 
economy of power it is due that associated men so rapidly 
accumulate capital by means of which they obtain increased 
command over the great natural forces, and are enabled to 
march steadily onward from triumph to- triumph — each suc- 
cessive one being greater than that by which it had been pre- 
ceded. Their pace is a constantly accelerated one ; whereas, 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 201 

that of the savage, daily more ajid more obliged to waste his 
capital, is a constantly retarded one ; and therefore it is, that 
while the former become from day to day more and more 
masters over nature and over themselves, the latter finds him- 
self becoming constantly more and more the slave of nature 
and of his fellow-men. 

§ 2. With every increase in the rapidity of the societary 
motion there is an augmentation of the force at its command, 
enabling it to devote a larger lyfoportioii of a condanlly in- 
creasing quantity to the development of the resources of the 
earth. The more the motion becomes accelerated, the less is 
the amount of those disturbing forces which tend to lessen 
the powers of the land and of the man who tills it ; and 
therefore is it that agriculture becomes a science, and that 
the cultivator, the man to whose labors we are indebted for 
all that we eat and wear, becomes more free as employments 
become more diversified. Whenever, on the contrary, man- 
ufactures decline and the miner and the artisan become more 
widely separated from the farmer and the planter, the separa- 
tion is followed by a rapid diminution in the quantity of 
physical and mental effort that can be given to the cultivation 
of the earth, and agriculture, ceasing to be a science, passes 
into the hands of men who from year to year become more 
and more enslaved. 

The mechanic, having skilled labor to sell, obtains high 
wages ; whereas, the man who tills the earth has unskilled 
labor to dispose of, and is everywhere almost, even when not 
quite, a slave ; and yet the pursuit which requires the highest 
degree of knowledge, and which pays best for it, is agri- 
culture. The reason for this is found in the fact that in 
almost all countries the policy genei'ally pursued has favored 
the establishment of centralization, and the consolidation of 
power in great trading cities, while it has been adverse to 
the creation of those local centres required for the maintenance 
of domestic commerce. 

§ 3. The skilled agriculturist is perpetually making a ma- 
chine, utilizing material heretofore unavailable for human 
purposes. He is perpetually increasing the return to his 
labor ; and the more he takes from his land the larger is the 
quantity of manure he can return to it, provided the marker 
be near at hand. 

With every stage of progress in this direction, the various 



202 CHAPTER XVT. § 3. 

utilities of the raw materials of the neighborhood become 
more and more developed. The new mill requires granite, 
and the houses for the workmen require bricks and lumber ; 
and now the rock of the mountain side, the clay of the river 
bottoms, and the timber with which they have so long been 
covered, grow rapidly in man's esteem. The granite dust is 
useful in the garden, enabling the cultivator to furnish cab- 
bages, beans, peas, and smaller fruits for the supply of work- 
men in the neighboring mill. The glass works need sand, 
and the glass-makers require peaches and apples ; and the 
more numerous the men who make the glass, the greater is 
tiie facility for returning the manure to the land, and increas- 
ing the crops of corn. On one hand there is a demand for 
potash, on another for madder. The woollen manufacturer 
asks for teazles, and the maker of brooms urges an extension 
of the culture of broom corn. The basket-makers and the 
gunpowder manufacturers claim the produce of the willows ; 
and thus does the farmer find that diversity of employment 
among those around him produces diversity in the demands 
for his physical and intellectual powers, and for the use of his 
various soils at the various seasons of the year, with consvant 
increase in the powers and in the price of his labor and his land. 
Directly the reverse of all this is the case as the consumer 
is more removed from the producer, and as the power of 
association declines. The madder, the teazle, the broom 
corn, and the osier, cease to be required ; and the granite, 
the sand, and the clay, are left where nature had placed them. 
The societary motion, or commerce, declines ; and with that 
decline we witness a stoppage in the motion of matter, witri 
constantly increasing waste of the powers of man, and of the 
machine given by the Creator for his use. His time is wasted, 
because he has no choice in the employment of his land. 
He must raise wheat, cotton, or sugar, or some other com- 
modity of which the yield is small, and which can, therefore, 
bear the cost of carriage to the distant market. He neglects 
his fruit trees, and his potatoes are given to the hogs. He 
wastes his rags and straw, because there is no paper-mill at 
hand. His cotton-seed wastes upon the ground, or he destroys 
the fibre of the flax that he may sell the seed.* Not only 

* "It is certainly a curious contrast, that on the one side British 
India is exporting £300,000 worth of flaxseed, and tlirowing away 
£500,000 of fibre ; and on the other, Ireland is raising to the value 
of £2,000,000 of flax-fibre, and rotting in the steep-pools £500,000 
of seed 1 It is Russia alone that has been benefiting by the iguo- 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 203 

does lie sell his wheat in a distant market, and thus im- 
poverish his land, but he does tlie same with tlie very bones 
of the animal fattened with his corn.* The yield, therefore, 
rt'frularly decreases in quantity, with constant increase in the 
risk of danj^er from the changes of the weather, because of 
the necessity for dependence on a single crop; and with 
equally constant diminution in the powers of the man who 
cultivates it, until at length he finds himself a slave, not only 
to nature, but to those of his fellow-men whose physical 
powers are greater than his own. That it is population 
which makes food come from the rich soils, and enables men 
to grow in wealth, is a truth the evidence of which may be 
found in every page of history ; and equally true is it, that 
in order to the cultivation of those soils, there must be that 
development of the latent powers of man which can be found 
only in those communities in which employments are much 
diversified. 

§ 4. Steadiness and regularity in the returns to agricul- 
tural labor grow with increase in the variety of commodities 
to the production of which the land may be devoted. Dis- 
ease, too, tends to disappear as population grows, and a 
market is created on, or near, the land. The poor laborer of 
Ireland sees his crop of potatoes perish of rot, consequent on 
the unceasing exhaustion of the soil ; and the agriculturist 
of Portugal witnesses the destruction of his hopes by the 
constant recurrence of the vine disease ; while the American 
farmer is perpetually visited by blight resulting from the 
necessity for constantly withdrawing from the soil the material 
required for enabling it fully to supply the ever-recurring crop 
of wheat. The man who has a market at his door finds both 
blight and insects vanish from his land ; and is further 
enabled from year to year more fully to profit by the dis- 
coveries of scientific men, and by their aid to free himself 
from disturbing causes that hitherto have brought loss to 

ranee of the Hindoo ryot, and the prejudices and carelessness of' 
the Irish farmer. Not a particle of the valuable plant is allowed 
by her nobles to no to waste. She sells us to the value of X:5,0(»(i,0(tO 
of fibre and i.'9UO,(iOii of seed each year, and does not even take our 
manufactures in return. ' — Belfast Mficiin/. 

* "Not a month passes that there is not in the harbor of New 
York or Boston a ship loading with bones for Kngland ; the result 
is seen in the decrease of American wheat from thirty to twelve 
bushels per acr^. and the increase of English from eleven to forty 
three ''•- Ayriculturist. 



204 CHAPTER XVI. § .^. 

himself or others, thus making his pursuit so nearly certain 
in its results as to add largely to the value of his labor and 
his land. 

Not only is all the labor given to manufacture so mucli 
saved that m^ouM otherwise be Vi^asted, but by means of that 
economy, and by that alone, it is, that we are enabled to 
increase the quantity of mental and physical effort given to 
agriculture. Such being the case, we can have no difficulty 
in understanding the cause of weakness in all purely agricul- 
tural communities ; nor why it is, that famines, pestilences, 
and death, follow so rapidly in the train of a system like that 
of Britain, which looks to having but a single workshop for 
the world. 

Of the combined physical and mental power of Ireland, 
nine-tenths are waste. Taking its population of twenty 
years since, male and female, capable of doing a full day's 
work, at three-fifths of the whole, or 5,000,000, the waste 
would be equal to that of 4,500,000 persons ; whereas, the 
whole number of persons engaged in Great Britain in mining 
coal and ore, and in every branch of the iron and cloth man- 
ufacture, was but 1,333,000. In India we find the same 
state of things in reference to a population of more than a 
hundred millions ; and looking throughout the world we find 
hundreds of other millions similarly situated. 

The direct tendency of the system under which such effects 
have been produced, is that of causing enormous waste of 
capital and thus annihilating demand for human service. 01 
all that have ever been devised it is the one most destructive 
of morals, intellect, and life ;. and hence it is that we see 
whole communities subject to it gradually disappearing from 
existence, and likely before the lapse of another century to 
have left behind them scarcely any evidence that the lands 
they had occupied had ever been the homes of civilized men. 

§ 5. The views now presented may be I'educed to the fol- 
lowing propositions : 

I. That, in the early periods of society, when population 
is small and land abounds, the proportion of human effort 
required for obtaining the absolute necessaries of life is great, 
but the quantity actually given thereto is small, the mass of 
the labor power produced being wasted in the effort to effect 
changes in the place, or in the forrri, of the commodities 
yielded by the earth ; as a consequence of which, man 
perishes for want of food. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 205 

II. That, with the growth of popuh\tion and of wealth, the 
power of association increases, with constant increase in the 
ubility productively to apply the force derived from the con- 
gumption of food, and constant diminution in the irroporlion 
of that force required for effecting changes of place, or 
mechanical and chemical changes of form. 

III. That the total quantity applied being a steadily in- 
creasing one, with constant diminution in the jjroportion thus 
required', there remains a constantly increasing proportion of 
a regularly increasing quantity to be given to augmenting 
the mass of commodities needed for man's use, and susceptible 
of being changed in place or form ; and that with every step 
in this direction larger supplies of food and of all other com- 
modities are obtained in return for diminished quantities of 
physical or intellectual effort. 

IV. That with every stage of progress individuality be- 
comes more and more developed, with constant increase in 
the tendency towards association and combination, increase 
in the love of harmony and peace, and increase in the tendency 
towards the creation of local centres of attraction, neutraliz- 
ing the centralization of trading and political capitals. 

V. That as the powers of the earth are more and more 
developed, the commodities required for the purposes of man 
steadily decline in value, while man himself becomes more 
valuable, more happy, and more free. 

YI. That while such is the natural course of events, directly 
the reverse is observed in all the countries subject to the 
British policy — individuality there everywhere declining, the 
power of association diminishing, and the warlike tendency 
as steadily increasing ; with constant increase in the value 
of commodities and decline in that of man, who becomes from 
year to year more and more enslaved. 

The tendencies of the system being thus opposed to the 
satisfaction of man's first and greatest need, there can now be 
little difl&culty in understanding why it is that it has given 
birth to the Ricardo-Malthusian theory ; nor why it is that, 
in the leading countries of the civilized world, it has provoked 
resistance. 
18 



206 CHAPTER XVII. § 1. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

OP VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OP MATTER — CONTINUED. 

J 1. Constant alliance between war and trade, as exhibited in the history of Francei 
Poverty and dishonesty of its sovereigns. 

2 2. Uniform tendency of its policy, prior to the days of Colbert, towards giving to trade 
the mastery over commerce. Tendency of his measures, that of increasing the rapidity 
of the societary movement. 

g 3. 'Warlike policy of Lonis XIV., and consequent necessity for abandonment of Colbert's 
system. Expulsion of the Huguenots, and annihilation of manufactures. Consequent 
unproductiveness of agriculture, and wretchedness of the people. 

g 4. Colbert's policy maintained by Turgot. Abandoned by the negotiators vif the Eden 
Treaty. Consequent annihilation of commerce. Poverty of the people leads to revolu- 
tion. Colbert's system re-established. Extraordinary growth in the quantity and value 
of the ijroducts of French agriculture. 

g 5. Changes in the distribution of labor's products resulting from increase in the power 
of association and combination, and in the quantity of commodities produced. Great 
increase in the value of land, resulting from diminution of the tax of transportation. 

§ 6. France a country of ■' contrasts" — its social system tending towards decentralization, 
while its political one tends, more and more, towards centralization. Colbert's policy in 
strict accordance with the doctrines of Adam Smith. Causes of poverty among the 
French people. 

§ 1. Op all the European comniunities, there is none in 
which war and trade have been in more close and constant 
alliance than has been the case in France; or in which the 
effects of that alliance in preventing the development of the 
treasures of the earth, have been more fully manifested. 
Abroad, from the days of Cliarlemagne to those of Waterloo, 
she has constantly been engaged in arresting the societary 
motion among her neighbors, wasting in the effort the powers, 
physical and mental, of her own population. At home, her 
people have been deprived of the right to determine for whom, 
or at what wages, they would labor, while liable to be taxed 
at the pleasure of the sovereign. Always poor, her rulers 
have with one hand farmed to others the privilege of taxing 
their subjects.; while with the other, they have granted in 
exchange for money, exemptions from contribution. At one, 
time they have sold titles carrying with them such exemptions ; 
at another, they have annulled all such grants. Henry IV.I 
made such sales in 1593, recalled them without repayment iif 
1598, and resold them in 1606. Louis XIII. continued to' 
sell them until 1638 ; then, in 1640, annulled the grants of all 
the previous thirty years. Louis XIV. resold, in 1661, priv- 
ileges that had been annulled in 1640, and three years later 
reannuUed all those which had been granted since 1634. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 207 

Still worse than this has been their conduct in reference to 
the important question of the currency. Philip the Fair 
changed the weight of the coin more than a handred times 
during his reign, and as often as thirteen times in a single 
year. His successors followed his example, buying gold and 
silver at low prices and selling them at high ones; and thus 
afiFording proof of the fact that dishonesty and meanness are 
the almost inseparable companions of arbitrar_v power. 

Under John (1356), interior custom-houses were estab- 
lished, at which were collected, on all merchandise passing 
from province to province, the same duties as upon similar 
commodities coming from distant countries, peculiar privileges 
being at the same time granted to foreign traders engaged in 
exchanging their wares against the rude products of the soil. 
Commerce being thus sacrificed at the shrine of trade there 
prevailed throughout the kingdom, during several centuries, 
the most entii'e ignorance of the simplest mechanic arts ; 
while in the Netherlands and Germany, Italy and Spain, art 
and science were making rapid progress. 

Directly the reverse was then the policy of England. 
"While John was extending the dominion of trade, Edward Ilf. 
was inviting Flemish artisans into England and thus enlarg- 
ing domestic commerce, while limiting the powers of the 
foreigners by whom English products had been till then 
monopolized. The same difference exhibits itself in the 
measures of their successors, and as a consequence the 
records of the House of Valois close, in 1589, with a state 
of society in which the laborer was enslaved, and brute force 
constituted the only law ; while the contemporary English 
history presents to us a community advancing steadily towards 
freedom — one that was even then preparing to give to tlie 
world the Hampdens and the Pyms, the Winthrops and the 
Williamses, the men who at home set limits to the power 
of the crown, and those who abroad laid the foundation of 
the great republic of modern times. In the one, we find the 
States-general declining steadily in its influence ; whereas in 
the other we mark a gradual growth in the power of Parlia- 
ment to control the aflairs of state.* 

§ 2. The example of the sovereign was followed in every 

* The last assembly of the States-General, prior to that which, in 
1789, ushered in the Revolution, was in 1605, when the popular 
branch nf the English Parliament was rapidly acquiring the power 
80 stroi.t,i'y "manifested in the reign of Charles I. 



208 CHAPTER XYII. § 3. 

quarter of the kingdom ; offices were bought and sold ; local 
taxes v/ere innumerable ; and manufacturers surrounded them- 
selves with regulations looking to the prevention of domestic 
competition for the purchase of raw materials, or for the sale 
of manufactures. Commerce having almost perished, the 
nation presented to view little more than two great classes, 
one of which lived and labored in wretchedness even when 
its members failed to perish of famine and pestilence, while 
the other revelled in barbaric luxury. In no part of Europe 
was the magnificence of the few so great, or the misery of 
the many so complete; and at no period was the contrast 
more perfect than when, in 1661, Colbert was called to the 
financial management of the kingdom. 

The system of internal intercourse then existing greatly 
resembled that of Germany at the opening of the present 
century, custom-houses on the borders of the provinces ob- 
structing the passage of men and things throughout the State. 
These Colbert transferred, as far as was then possible, to the 
frontiers, thus establishing freedom of circulation throughout 
the kingdom. He next sought to improve the means of 
transportation ; and the canals of Orleans, Briare, and Lan- 
guedoc, still attest the importance of his eiforts. Further, 
desiring to re-establish the various industries that had so 
nearly perished during previous centuries, he imposed heavy 
duties on foreign manufactures, while exerting himself to 
naturalize both the raw materials of manufacture and the 
skill required for their conversion into finished products. 
Throughout the reign of Louis XIY. political centralization 
tended constantly to increase, but the system of his great 
minister looked to social and commercial decenti'alization ; 
and to his measures it is largely due that agriculture, manu- 
factures, and commerce, have made the extraordinary progress 
since exhibited.* 

§ 3. Repeating, however, the error of the early English 
Parliaments, Colbert prohibited the export of raw produce. 
He sought to aid the agricultural interest by bringing the 
artisan nearer to the farmer, and thus relieving the land from 
the tax of transportation ; but by interdicting the farmer from 
going with his products to the distant market he established 

* "Louis XIV might with truth and justice say that, in giving 
him Colbert, God had done much foi* the prosperity and glory of his 
reign. France might add, that she owes to his wise counsels the 
wonderful development of her industry.'' — 2'kierrij. 



I 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 209 

a monopoly in favor of the domestic artisan. Time and 
further experience would liave corrected this had peace been 
maintained, but such proved not to be the case. Scarcely 
had his system begun to operate when his master commenced 
the movement against the Protestants, which terminated, in 
1685, in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Two millions 
of tlie most intellectual, best instructed, and essentially man- 
ufacturing part of the people were, by that act, exposed to 
persecutions of every kind, resulting in the death of half a 
million of persons ; while at least an equal number, escaping 
into England, Holland, and Germany, carried with them their 
iikill and intelligence, as well as the secrets of their various 
manufactures. When we add, that Louis was incessantly 
engaged in wars demanding enormous sacrifices, and closing 
invariably with treaties requiring the abandonment of the 
protection to manufactures which Colbert had established,* 
it is no matter of surprise that at his death tiie condition of 
the people should have been miserable to a degree of which 
we can scarcely now form an idea ; nor, that the reign of his 
successor should have been marked by an almost total absence 
of commerce, and a universal depression of the agricultural 
interest, consequent on the almost entire annihilation of the 
manufacturing one. 

§ 4. A century after Colbert we find Turgot, animated by 
the same views, laboring to free land and labor from the 
monopolies that still retarded the growth of commerce. The 
period during which he occupied the post of Comptroller- 
General of the Finances exhibits a constant series of edicts 
looking to the abolition of exclusive privileges, and the eman- 
cipation of labor from the control of corporations that stood 
between the producer and the consumer. His administration 
endured but three years ; and with its close disappeared all 
hope of a peaceful solution of the financial diificullies of the 
government, or of the peaceful nunoval of the burdens undcn* 
whicii the people had so long suffered. Theoretically, Turgot 
was opposed to the idea of granting protection to the farmer 
ii. the effort to bring the consumer to his side ; but he never 
interfered with the protective system he had found estab- 
lislied. His incapable successors, however, negotiated, in 

* Nimeguen, in 1G79 ; Ryswick, 1G97; and Utrecht in 1713; all 
of wliidh contained provisions setting aside Colbert's taritFof lot)7 ; 
and one of which went so far as to limit the power of the king to 
grant protection to his subjects. 



210 CHAPTER XVII. § 4. 

1786, a treaty with England under which the towns and cities 
of France were so flooded with English aierchandise that 
before the lapse of even the second year the varied industry 
that had been so carefully built up had almost ceased to exist. 
Workmen were discharged, agriculture suffered, and com- 
merce perished. The distress was universal, paralyzing the 
government, and forcing it into the initial measure of the 
ilevolution — the calling together of the Notables in 1788. 

All that Turgot had vainly claimed in behalf of the people 
was now taken by them ; the pi'ivileges of corporations were 
swept away, the property of the nobility and the church con- 
fiscated, and peer and peasant declared equal before the law. 
Commerce was in a great measure freed from the restrictions- 
by which its course had been impeded ; the right to labor 
ceased to be a privilege ; the soil became the suloject of pur- 
chase and sale ; and the laborer could bestow his labor on a 
piece of land, confident that the benefit would accrue to him- 
self and to his heirs. These decentralizing measures, how- 
ever, were accompanied with the highly centralizing ones of 
the abolition of local governments, the annihilation of ancient 
boundaries, and the division of the country into departments, 
all tending to diminish that feeling of local pride which so 
much contributes to the activity of social life. Provision 
was thus made for the future diminution of social centraliza- 
tion, but political centralization was at once and largely 
increased ; and hence it is, that France has not yet been able 
to obtain a stable government. 

Amid this war of elements the system of Colbei't, so far 
as it had established direct intercourse between producers 
and consumers, stood unharmed, the retrograde step of those 
who had negotiated the treaty of '86 having speedily been 
retraced, and protection re-established. The war that fol- 
lowed, producing a necessity for looking homeward for sup- 
plies of cloth and iron, tended in the same direction. Such, 
too, was the tendency of the Continental system of Napoleon ; 
and therefore was it that the return of peace found the people 
and the government prepared to act together in carrying out, 
and even strengthening, the measures of resistance to trading 
centralization begun, a century and a half before, by the 
illustrious minister of Louis XIY. How far these measures 
have tended to the advancement of agriculture is seen in the 
fact that during a period of twenty-seven years, from 1813 to 
1840, the annual average increase in the money value of the 
products of the farm was no less than 20,000,000 of dollars, 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 21 1 

tlie return to the labor emp]o3-etl in cultivation having almost 
doubled, although the population had increased but twenty- 
five per cent. 

Nor is it the money value alone of the produce that has 
thus increased. The cereal products doubled in quantity in 
the period from IT 60 to 1840 ; and the potato culture, which 
has been introduced within that time, now yields 96,000,000 
of hectolitres, while the crops of garden vegetables have won- 
derfully increased. Of sugar from the beet-root, a manufac- 
ture introduced by Napoleon, the yield now amounts to 
200,000,000 of pounds, while the amount of silk cocoons pro- 
duced, which in 1812 scarcely exceeded 10,000,000 of pounds, 
had risen to more than 50,00^0,000. 

France had then nearly 40,000,000 of sheep against 
20,000,000 in 1789; but the improvement in quality had 
been far greater than in quantity, the demand from the 
woollen manufacture having oft'ered a large bounty upon the 
devotion of time, mind, and means, to the improvement of 
the race. 

Cloth has declined in price, while wool and corn have risen, 
the prices of the raw material and the finished commodity 
thus steadily approximating, always a sign of advancing 
civilization ; and the consequence is seen in the fact that the 
average money value of land has more than trebled. Much 
of this augmented value results from the great increase in the 
yield, especially of those products that, because of their bulk, 
will not bear transportation. A further, and very large, por- 
tion of it is consequent on the increased utility of many por- 
tions of the product, resulting from the proximity of the 
market. Thus, the straw alone is valued at $150,000,000, 
being as much as tlie product of the whole cotton crop 
of these United States, which occupies so nearly exclusively 
the land of no less than ten of our States, and furnishes 
almost the whole employment of so many millions of our 
people. 

§ 5. The general effect of the changes above described is 
found in the following brief summary of the contents of an 
extended article communicated by M. de Jonnes to the An- 
ntiaire de V Economie Politique el Statistique, for 1851, for 
which we are indebted to the excellent little Manual of 
Political Economy, of Mr. E. Peshine Smith. 

" The inquirj"- extends back to the period of Louis XIV., 
embracing the exj erience of one hundred and fifty years, 



212 CHAPTER XVII. § 5. 

divided, for the purposes of comparison, into five periods. 
The facts, as condensed in a tabular form, are as follows : — 
" The first table contains a statement of the aggregate ex- 
penditure, at different periods, for the cultivation of the soil 
of France (excluding the value of the seed), in millions of 
francs — of the proportion which the sum total of wages bore 
to the whole value of the product of the soil — and of the 
amount of such expenditure per head to the actual population 
of the kingdom at each epoch, as follows : — 

/-.„„j. ^f n.,-„„(.: Proportion to the To eacb 

Cost of cultivation. ^^^^^.^ p^^^^^j_ inhabitant. 

Epoch. Francs. Per cent. I'ra?i<:s. 

1700, Louis XIV 458,000,000 35 24 

1760, Louis XV 442,000,000 37 21 

1788, Louis XVI 725,000,000 43 30 

1813, The Empire... 1,827,000,000 60 61 

1840, Louis Philippe 3,016,000,000 60 90 

" The following statement gives the division of wages 
among the agricultural families of the kingdom at the same 
period, upon the estimate that they averaged four and a half 
persons to a family, giving the annual wages of each family, 
and the amount per day for each of its members : — 

Number of agricultural iages":^ Daily wages of each. 

families. Francs. Drancs. Centimes.* Sous 

1700 3,36U,000 135 37 or 7i 

1769 3,500,000 126 35 " 7 

1788 4,000,000 161 45 " 9 

1813 4,600,000 400 1 10 " 22 

1840 6,000,000 500 1 37 " 27 

" M. de Jonnes compares these prices of labor w^ith those 
of wheat, for the purpose of seeing how far they would go in 
the respective periods towards supplying the prime necessities 
of life. He reckons that thirteen and a half hectolitres (the 
hectolitre is 2j^^g bushels) of wheat has been about the 
quantity of grain needed for the consumption of a family — 
needed more during the earlier than the latter periods, because 
its v/ant is now, in a great degree, obviated by a variety of 
garden vegetables formerly unknown or very little cultivated. 
He constructs a table giving the mean price of wheat, deduced 
from an average of the market for long series of years, under 
each reign, as follows : — 

" * Th9 centime is the hundredth part of a franc, or about one-fiftL 
of a cent: the sou is five centimes, or about one cent." 



OP VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 213 



Under Louis XIY., average of 72 year 

" Louis XV., " 60 

" Louis XVI., " 16 

" The Empire. " 10 

" Cunstituiional Monarchy, " 10 



Mea M 


price 


per 


hectolitre. 


F 


raitcs. 




Centimes 


;ir3 .. 


. 18 




.. 86 




. 13 




.. 05 




, 16 




.. 00 




. 21 




.. 00 


' 


. 19 




.. 03 



sriod. 
1 


W.iges. 
13.3 


2 

3 

4 


126 

161 

4(10 


5 


500 



" The result of a comparison of the annual earnings of a 
family of agricultural laborers, with the cost of thirteen and 
a half hectolitres of wheat required for their annual cou- 
sumption, is given in the following table : — 

Cost of 133^ hectolitres. 
Francs. Fruiics. 

25-1 ; deficit, 119 
176; " 50 

216; " 55 

283; excess, 117 
259 ; " 24-i 

"During the reign of the Grand Monarque, the rural popu- 
lation of France wanted bread half of the time. Under the 
sway of Louis XV., it had bread two days out of three. 
Sufficient progress had been made under Louis XVI. to give 
it bread three-fourths of the year; while, under the Empire 
and the rule of the Citizen King, wages were sufficient to 
supply the laborer with bread through the year, and leave a 
surplus towards procuring other food and clothing. Doubt- 
less, the laboring classes at the earliest period obtained food 
enough, such as it was, to support animal life, and made shift 
to get some clothing also. But their bread was made of the 
inferior grains, chestnuts, at.d even worse materials. De 
Jonnes quotes the Marquis d'Argenson, one of the ministers 
of Louis XV., as saying, in 1789, 'At the moment when I 
write, in the month of February, in the midst of peace, with 
appearances promising a harvest, if not abundant at leost 
passable, men die around us like flies, and are reduced by 
poverty to eat grass.' He ascribes their condition to exces- 
sive taxation, declaring that the kingdom was treated like an 
enemy's country laid under military contribution. The Duke 
of Orleans, to bring the condition of his peo})le to the knowl- 
edge of the sovereign, finally carried a loaf oi fern bread to 
the meeting of the king's council, and at the opening of the 
session laid it before his Majesty, saying, ' See, Sire, what 
your subjects live upon.' This may be regarded as an excep- 
tional case ; but a very small portion even of well-read men, 
at the present day, have any adequate impression of tho 
wretchedness of the food upon which the luass of the people 



214 CHAPTER XVII. § 5. 

of Europe fed a century and a half ago, and which even now 
makes the subsistence of a large portion of tliem.* De Jou- 
nes says of his countrymen, in tiie year of grace 1850, 'A 
large part of the population of our rural districts continue, 
from habit and from necessity, to feed upon a detestable bread, 
an indigestible mixture of rye, barley, bran, beans, and pota- 
toes, which is neither leavened nor cooked sufficiently ;' and 
Blanqui, who, under a commission of the Institute, has for 
two years past been journejn'ng through the provinces to 
examine into and report upon their condition, declares that 
thej^ alone who have seen it, can conceive the degree in which 
the clothing, furniture, and food of the rural population are 
slender and sorry. An official report for 1.845, of the number 
of houses in France subject to the door-and-window tax, shows 
that there are, in all, 7,519,310 houses — of which 500,000 have 
only one aperture, 2,000,000 with only two, and 1,500,000 
with from four to five. Two-sevenths only of the whole 
have six or more openings. Thus are the French people 
lodged. 

" Recurring now to the tables for the purpose for which 
they were adduced, we see that they prove a great advance, 
both in the absolute amount of wages, and in the proportion 
which they bear to the entire product, and to the share of the 
capitalist. The proportion to the entire product has almost 
doubled in one hundred and fifty years, having risen from 
35 per cent, to 60. As between the laborers and the capital- 
ists, it was, in 1700, 35 per cent, to the fcraer, and 65 to 
the latter. It is now 60 per cent, to the former, and 40 
to the latter, who, instead of getting two-thirds of the pro- 
duet — twice as much as the laborers — now get but two-fifths, 
leaving the laborers three-fifths, or 50 per cent, more than 
the capitalists. But, although the latter get a diminished 
proportion, the increased efficiency of labor and capital has 
so much increased the crop, that this diminished propor- 
tion yields an amount not only absolutely greater, but greater 
relatively to the increased population. This is readily shown 
by a few figures, deduced from the tables of M. Jonnes. 

"■* According to a Report of the Central Agricultural Congress, 
at Paris, published in the Journal des Debuts, March 30, 1847, it ap- 
pears that in 1760 only 7,000,000 of the French people lived ou 
wheat and corn ; while, in 1843, 20,000,000 lived on wheat and corn, 
and the remainder were much better nourishfl than in the formei 
^wriod." 



OF VITAL CHANGES OP FORM. 215 

Taking for comparison the two extremes, we find the follow- 
ing results : — 

Paid to agiicul. Total Leaving for rest 

Total Agricultural lal)orers. product. of population. 

population. population. Francs. I^ancs. JPidiirs. 

1700, 19.500,000 15,000.000 458.000,000 l,308,0iiO,O00 850,000,000 

1840, 36,000,000 27,000,000 3,016,000,000 5,025,000,000 2,009,000,000 

'• From this it appears that, notwithstanding the laborers 
are so much better paid — three and two-thirds times more than 
in 1700 — (or, rather, because they are so much better paid.) 
the remainder, left to be divided among the capitali.'^ts and 
non-agricultural classes, is larger than before, and they fare 
better also. The entire population of France lacks three 
millions of having doubled, while the crop has nearly quad- 
rupled ; so that, on an equal distribution, there is now twice 
as much for each mouth as in 1700 But, looking to the 
actual distribution, now and then, we see that while the non- 
agricultural population has increased 100 per cent., the sur- 
plus left, after paying the agricultural laliorers their increased 
wages and enlarged proportion, has increased 127 per cent. 
This is the state of the case, the comparison being made in 
money. If it is desired to estimate it in food, we have the 
necessary elements of calculation, when we know that the 
mean price of wheat at the first epoch was 18 francs 85 
centimes per hectolitre, while at the latter it was 19 francs 
3 centimes — a difference of less than two cents a bushel. 
If it should be objected that these figures do not show how 
much goes to the landlord in his quality of owner of the soil, 
and how much to the man who advances capital in the shape 
of seed, tools, etc., for its cultivation, the answer is, that the 
proportion of the crop which pays both is less than formerly : 
'f the landlord took tlie whole, it would be a less share than 
both obtained in 1700; and if he now gets nothing in his 
quality of proprietor of land; leaving the whole to remunerate 
himself or third persons for the use of capital other than land, 
it is less in ratio than he originally received for the use of 
the land and all the other capital employed in tilling it. 

"The operation of the law is indicated by a comparison of 
different portions of France. ' It is,' says Passy, 'a country 
of contrasts. There are departments which seem to have 
made no agricultural progress for a century ; there are other.'* 
whose agriculture is not behind that of the most advanced 
countries of Europe. In the departments most backward, 
the expenses of cultivation do not exceed an average of 



216 GHAPTER XVII. § 6. 

30 francs to the hectare (2^*^'^ acres), and the gross revenue 
is about TO francs. In the advanced departments, on the 
contrary, the expenditure amounts to 200 francs and over to 
the hectare ; and at this cost a gross product is realized of at 
least 320 francs, leaving the farmers, as w^ell to pay the rent 
as for their own profits, about 120 francs. In the latter, 
the excess of the produce above the cost of production is 
three times that of the former; but it requires nearly seven 
times the amount of advances of capital.'* The capitalists, 
w^ho obtain for rent and profits four-sevenths of the value of 
the crop, have but one-third the amount received by those 
whose proportion is but three-eighths. The remaining five- 
eighths, which the latter expend in the wages of laborers and 
the improvement of the soil, is five times as much in amount 
as is furnished for those objects in the poorer departments. 
Decreasing proportion for the capitalists, with increasing 
quantity, is thus exhibited, as well by the comparison between 
different districts of the same country, as by that of the 
country at large in different stages of its progress. The con- 
verse of the proposition must clearly hold in respect to the 
wages of labor ; and, after better wages have been provided 
for the existing laborers, there is still three times the amount 
to be added to the capital of the advanced departments, and 
to furnish wages for new laborers in the advanced depart- 
ments, that the more backward could supply. Instead of 
population encroaching upon the limits of subsistence, those 
limits recede before the advance of population." 

§ 6. The more perfectly a community ^n is/; 66" the raw pro- 
ducts of its soil, so as to fit them for consumption, the larger 
will be the quantity of physical and mental power produc- 
tively employed, and the larger will be the proportion of that 
increased quantity given to the work of augmenting the pro- 
duce demanding to be finished. The labor given to the 
work of conversion is all of it economized ; not only so, but 
the relief thus obtained from the necessity for transportation 
enables the cultivator so to vary his demands upon the soil 
as largely to increase his crops. Further, he is enabled to 
return to the soil the manure from the neighboring town, thus 
increasing the powers of his land. Food therefore becomes 
more abundant as the farmer and the artisan are more and 
more enabled to take their places by each other's side. 

* Dictionnaire de V Economie Politique, vol. i. p. 38; article, Agriculture. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 217 

Directly tlie reverse of all this is what is taught in that 
economical school which sees the perfection of social arrange- 
ment in having a single workshop for the world, and conlining 
all other communities to the mere tillage of the earth. The 
consequences of this latter system are seen in Ireland, Turkey, 
and other countries heretofore referred to, all of them being 
in a gradual course of decay and dissolution ; whereas, when 
we turn to France, whose policy is, and so long has been, 
entirely opposed to the teachings of the English school, we 
find abundant evidence of the proposition : — That a nation 
v/hich Hesires that the supply of the raw products of the 
earth may be abundant, must make demand for them by 
means of bringing their consumers as near as possible to the 
producers, and thus diminishing the tax of transportation . 

That the raising of raw produce for consumption in distant 
markets was the proper work of the barbarian and the slave, 
was a truth clearly obvious to the observant eyes of Adam 
Smith, So, too, was it with the great statesman to whom 
France has been so much indebted for the great progress she 
since has made. Great as it has been, however, her people, 
as a rule, are still poor, and her productive powers are small 
when compared with her vast advantages. For the main- 
tenance of a vast naval and military establishment, there are 
required enormous contributions in money ; and yet, opi)res- 
sive as they are, they are less injurious than the withdrawal, 
annually, from the labors of the field and the workshop, of so 
large a portion of the younger population, and this at the 
precise period when their habits for life are to be determined. 

This, however, is but one of the many of the restraints 
by which commerce is impeded, centralization being universal, 
and producing everywhere a waste of physical and mental 
faculty. As nothing can be done without the intervention 
of the government, far more power is wasted daily than is 
profitably applied ; and to this it is due that agriculture has 
'■"^f as yet made the progress that could have been desired. 
19 



218 CHAPTER XVIII. § 1. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

OF VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OF MATTER — CONTINUED. 

J 1. Wide difference between the French and Bi-itish systems — the former looking to tlie 
approximation of the producer and consumer, and the latter to their separation. 

2 2. Consequences of this exhibit themselves in the great increase in the value of French 
land, as compared with that of the United Kingdom. Comparative growth of French 
and British agriculture. ^ 

g 3. French land being more divided, the small proprietor profits by increase in the 
prices of his products and his laud. British tenants ruined by decline in the price 
of food. 

J 4. French policy looks to making manufactures subsidiary to agriculture — facilitating 
the export of the products of the soil of France. Consequent increase of French 
commerce. 

g 5. British policy makes agriculture subsidiary to manufactures. Trade, therefore, re- 
places the former British commerce. 

2 6. British system taxes the agricultural communities of the world for its maintenance. 
That of France looks to their emancipation from taxation. 

J 7. Solidarity of interests among the land-owners and laborers of the world at large. 
Deterioration of the condition of the firm-laborers of England. Centralization, over- 
population, and physical and mental decline travel hand in hand together. 

§ 1. Two systems are now before the world,— one, whose 
objects are to be promoted by increasing? competition for 
the sale of all the raw materials of manufacture, labor 
included ; and another, which looks to increasing- compe- 
tition for their parch as^e. 

The first tends towards increasing the necessity for the 
machinery of transportation, and thus augmenting the 
influence of trade. The second would promote the growth 
of the associative power and thus diminish the necessity for 
such machinery, while enlarging the field of commerce. 

The first looks to widening the space by which the pro- 
ducer and the consumer are separated ; the second looks to 
its contraction 

The one would increase the difference between the prices 
of raw materials and finished commodities ; the other would 
secure their more close approximation. 

The one looks to adding to the value of commodities and 
thus diminishing that of man ; the other, to diminishing the 
value of things, and increasing that of the men who need to 
use them. 

The one looks to increasing the proportion of mental and 
physical power given to trade and transportation, and thus 
diminishing that which might be applied to production ; the 
other, to an increase in the proportion given to production, 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 219 

aiul a diminution in that {ijjplied to effecting clianges in tlie 
places of the things j)roduced. 

Leader in the advocacy of the first has been, and is, Great 
Britain. Leader in the establi^-hnient of the second, and most 
consistent in its maintenance, is France ; and thus, after 
striving for so nian}^ ages to injure each other by means of 
warlilve operations, are those two nations now engaged in a 
peaceful contest for the leadership of the world ; but, peace- 
ful as it is, it is destined to exercise an anutunt of influence 
ctunpared with which that resulting from the mov(;ment of 
fleets and armies in the past will prove to have been utterly 
insignificant. 

For centuries, both have been almost unceasingly engaged 
in war, but widely different have been the ol)jects aimed at; 
France having sought for glory and dominion, while England 
lias looked with a single eye to the supremacy of trade. Equally 
different have been their respective policies: — France having 
imitated Rome, who, universal plunderer that she was, left 
the local arrangements of her [jrovinees untouched ; while 
Great Britain has imitated Holland, in seeking to monopolize 
the machinery of trade and transportation, and thereby to 
compel the whole people of the world to make their exchanges 
in her single and distant market. The policy of the one has 
been that of the soldier ; the other, that of the trader, founded 
on the single idea of "buying in the cheapest market and 
selling in the dearest." 

France permitted her colonists to refine their own sugar, 
and to make their own cloth. England, on the contrary, 
desiring that the " mischievous practice" might be prevented, 
inserted in her grants of land clauses declaring the same to 
be void should the grantee "a|)ply himself to the making of 
woollen, or such like manufactures " Looking towards the 
enlargement of commerce, France, under the lead of Turgot, 
abolished the monopolies of earlier times; while at the same 
moment the Parliament of England, looking alwaj's toward 
trade, was adding, year after year, to the restrictions upon 
the movements of her artisans, and thus seeking to create a 
monopoly to be held against the world. By an examination 
of the results we may perhaps judge which must ultimately 
remain conqueror; merely reminding the reader that the 
question is one o^ progress, not of actual condition . In both 
there is much of poverty and wretchedness; in both, central- 
ization is great. What, however, we need to know is, 
whether they are advancing or declining, and what is the 



220 CHAPTER XVIII. § 2. 

rate at which they move. If one can be shown to be steadilv 
gaining on the other, then we may feel assured that, however 
backward it may appear, to it must ultimately be adjudged 
the prize of victory. 

§ 2. The essential characteristic of advancing civilization 
is an approximation of the prices of raw materials to that 
of the fininhed commodities into which they are converted. 
With every step in this direction the land, the source from 
which we derive the corn, cotton, sugar, and ore, tends to 
acquire a higher money value, being more freed from the tax 
of transportation. 

Forty years since, the total product of agricultural labor in 
France was but 3,333,000,000 of francs ; of which, according 
to M. de Jonnfes, the portion representing the value of the 
land was 45 per cent., or 1,500,000,000. In 1840 the product 
was about 6,000,000,000, and it now exceeds 8,000,000,000, 
of which the land may claim a third, or little less than 
3,000,000,000. Estimating these quantities at twenty-five 
years' purchase, we obtain as the money value of the soil 
of France — 

181.3 37,500,000,000 francs. 

1840 50,000.000,000 

1856 70,000,000,000 " 

In less than half a century the price has almost doubled. 

Crossing the channel, we meet a pictui-e widely different. 
Forty years since the annual value of the land of the United 
Kingdom, exclusive of metals, mines, fishei'ies, etc., was as 
follows : — ■ 

England and Wales £34,.330,462 

Scotland 3,804,221 

Ireland 12,715,778 

Thirty years later that of England had slightly increased, 
the assessment of 1843 having been £3*7,412,000 ; and at the 
same amount it w^as estimated by Mr. Caird, the highest 
authority in regard to British agriculture, in 1857. That of 
Ireland, however, had so greatly fallen, that the total scarcely 
exceeded that of 1815 ; while, as we have seen, that of France 
had nearly doubled. 

The total quantity of food produced in Great Britain has 
largely increased, but the prices have fallen ; as here pre- 
sented in the case of wheat 

1800 to 1809 £4 2 2 1830 to 1839 £2 16 5 

1820 " 1829 2 18 5 1840 " 1849 2 15 11 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 221 

The followinp; are the prices, per liectulitre, in France, for 
nearly the same period : — 

1S05 to 1S14 21 09 franrs. 1S31 to lS4n 19.0.S fianci». 

1S15 •' IcoO 2U.62 " 1840 " 1849 21.60 " 

In the one we have a production that does not keep pace 
vvitii the growth of popuhition, yet tlie price lias greatly 
fallen : while in the other, we have a production that out- 
Btrii).s the growth of numbers, yet the price in the closing 
period is higher than in those by which it had been preceded. 

§ 3. In France, land being much divided, the occupants 
were generally its owners; and every increase in the price 
of land and of its products accrued to the advantage of the 
cultivator, who was thus enabled to improve his own methods 
while becoming a better custonier to his neighl)ors. 

In England, lands were generally held under leases requir- 
ing large money paynients, failing to make which, tenants 
were liable to be expelled, leaving to landlords all the advan- 
tage resulting from the expenditure tlie former had- incurred. 
The heavy fall of prices rendering it impossible that he 
should pay such rents, the consequences are seen in such 
facts as the following, furnished by Mr. Caird :— 

" Seven of these first-class farms, all contiguous, and the 
very pick of the country, tell the following tale : — The first, 
nfter having been held seven years, was given up, and relet, 
at a reduction of 20 per cent. The second, the tenant having 
become bankrupt, was let to a new tenant at a reduction. 
The third was given up, and relet at a reduction of about 
22 per cent. The fourth, the tenant having failed, was let to 
a new tenant at a reduction of 13 j^er cent. The fifth, the 
tenant having also failed, has been relet to a new one. The 
sixth has been also relet at a reduction of 20 per cent. The 
seventh has been given up, and is now ofiered at a reduction 
of 20 per cent." 

The small proprietors had disappeared, and their places 
had been taken by the tenant and the hired laborer.* The 
tenants in their turn were being ruined, and thus did the 

* " Instead of several millions of onr people having a share or 
direct interest in tlie soil of this country, as svould have been the 
case had small properties and the cottage system continued until 
now, — the number of proprietors is dwindling down to a hanilful, 
and the tenants, owing to the enlargement of farms, are under- 
going a corresponding diuxiuixiion." — Blackwood's Maijazine, De- 
cember, 1855 « 



222 CHAPTER XVIII. § 4. 

system tend to the annihilation of all those classes which 
before had stood between the great land-owner and the mere 
farm-laborer. The whole British system is based upon the 
idea that the prosperity of man is to be promoted by cheap- 
ening the raw products of the earth ; and yet all experience 
teaches, that where they are cheapest the cultivator is the most 
enslaved. 

§ 4. As a general rule, France feeds herself. In 184'! her 
imports were adequate to the supply of 2,100,000 persons. 
In 1832 and 1846 she imported half that quantity. In 19 out 
of 33 years her imports were insignificant. 

The annual average of her exports in the ten years ending 
1836, but little exceeded 500,000,000 francs. In 1852 the 
amount was 1,250,000,000, being an increase of 150 per cent ; 
and yet nearly the whole amount of labor thus exported 
directly represented food product' d on the soil of France. 

In 1854, the value of the cotton fabrics exported was 
60,000,000 francs, while the weight was but 16,000,000 
pounds, so that the raw cotton which had passed into the 
manufacturer's hands at, probably, ten cents, had attained a 
value eight times greater. The total weight of textile fabrics 
exported in that year was under 16,000 tons, which could be 
carried in thirty ships of moderate size ; while in that small 
bulk was contained probably not less than sixty millions of 
dollars' worth of French food, so condensed (according to the 
ideas of Adam Smith) as to enable it to travel freely to the 
remotest corners of the world. 

The tendency of French policy is that of making manufac- 
tures subsidiary to agriculture, combining a small amount of 
foreign raw materials with a large quantity of those produced 
at home, and thus enabling her farmers to maintain commerce 
with distant countries. Scarcely any thing passes out until 
it has attained a form so high as to cause the skill and taste 
which represent her own food, to bear a very large propor- 
tion to the value of the raw material employed. Her exports 
of raw produce are insignificant; and even of wine the 
amount sent abroad little exceeds that of the years preceding 
the Revolution, the average from 1844 to 1846 having been 
but 1,401,800 hectolitres, against 1,241,700 fr^m 1181 to 1189. 

The total value of French exports in 1854 was $280,000,000, 
of which the foreign raw materials could scarcely have ex- 
ceeded a fifth ; leaving above $220,000,000 as the value of 
domestic prodiicts furnished t-o the world. 



( F VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 223 

§ 5. In 1815 the declared value of Britij^h manufactures 
exported was £51,632,791, while the import of wool, cotton, 
silk, and flax amounted to 155,7-47,000 pounds weight. If 
to the cotton, wool, silk, and flax re-exported, we add the 
dyeing materials, etc , used in their manufacture, we obtain 
of foreign commodities re-exported 12 or 13 millions, leav- 
ing nearly 40 milli .ns as the actual value of British produce 
exported : which, divided among the people, would give 
uijout £2 per head. 

The producer of food and the sheep farmer were both then 
profiting by the export trade. If ihe cotton and silk that 
went abroad were foreign, the corn and wool embodied in the 
cloth were principally of domestic origin. 

In 1851 the exports were £68,492,599, nearly the whole 
increase being found in four branches of manufacture, the 
materials of which were wholl}^ drawn from abroad. 

The reader must bear in mind that those who furnish the 
food, clothing, and lodging, do, in fact, furnish the labor. 
A steam-engine is an instrument by means of which the 
force yielded by the consumption of fuel is made to serve the 
purposes of man. So is it with men. Their daily power to 
labor results from their daily consumption of food ; and 
therefore tJwse ivJw supply the food and clothing really sup- 
ply the power. Let us now inquire how many of the people 
of England are fed by the agricultural nations of the earth, 
and how many of the former work for these latter. 

The foreign food imported in 1851 would, if divided among 
four millions of people, give much more than the average 
consumption of the men, women, and children employed in 
the British workshops, and it may therefore fairly be assumed 
that the world furnishes four millions of her laborers with 
food and clothing, and with shelter, too, the greater part (if 
the timber there consumed being drawn from abroad. To 
this may be further added all the tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, 
lemons, oranges, figs, raisins, spices, and tobacco consumed 
by the 28,000,000 of the population of the United Kingdom. 

Of raw materials, foreign nations suppl}^ all the silk, cotton, 
oil, saltpetre, and dye-stuffs. Of hides, wool, flax, hemp, and 
various other articles, they not only furnish all that is re-ex- 
ported in the shape of manufactures, but as much more as is 
adequate to meet the demands of a large portion, if not the 
whole, of the four millions above referred to, who may there- 
fore be considered as being fed, lodged, clothed, and supplied 
to the English people by the other communities of the world 



224 CHAPTER XVIII. § 6. 

§ 6. In 1841 the number of persons employed in the— 

Cutton, hose, wool, lace, worsted, silk, flax, and linen man- 
ufactures, was 800,246 

In the mines 193 825 

In the working of metals and making of instruments 303,368 

Making a great total of 1,297,439 

The number employed in 1861 may perhaps have been l,500,i 00 

If SO, it follows that the world, in addition to nearly all the 
i-aw materials, furnishes the labor of nearly three times as 
many persons as are employed in all these great branches of 
industry. 

Of this million and a half, but a small proportion is em- 
ployed in workinp: for the foreigners who supply this food and 
these raw materials. Of the commodities exported, nearly 
all are of the coarser kinds, requiring little skill or taste. 
Thus, out of an export of £81,000,000 in 1854, there was of 

Metals in their rudest Earthenware, alkali,beer 
state £15,000,000 and ale, butter, can- 
Coals 1 ,500,000 dies, cordage, fish, salt, 

Yarns 10,000,000 wool £5,000,000 

Linen averaging 16 cts. 4,000,000 Cotton cloth, aveiaging 

7cts. peryard 24,000,000 

Except machinery and mill-work amounting to £2,000,000, 
and hardware and cutlery £4,000,000, there is scarcely any 
thing in the list of English exports requiring either skill or 
taste. It may therefore well be doubted if more than one- 
fifth of the labor given to manufactures is applied to the pro- 
duction of the things exported, but to avoid the possibility 
of erroi", we may assume it at one-third. The account between 
England and the world at large would then stand as follows : — 

Dr. Cr. 

To the labor of four millions of per- By the labor of half a million of 
sons employed in Great Britain, men, women, and children, em- 

fed, clothed, and lodged by other ployed in the lowest order of the 

nations. labors of conversion. 

To the tea, sugar, coffee, tobacco, 
fruits, and other commodities con- 
sumed by twenty-eight millions of 
persons. 

To the cotton, flax, hemp, silk, lura- By a small portion of the raw mate-. 



ber, and other raw materials re- rial employed, 

quired for domestic consumption 
and for exportation. 



The change above exhibited in the movements of these two 
great communities is the most remarkable on record, to have 
been accomplished in so short a time. Forty years since 



I 



M 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 225 

Great Bi'itain carried on a great comnierce with the world, 
giving corn, wool, etc., in tlie shape of cloth and iron, in ex- 
change for tea, sugar, coffee, etc. Now, that commerce has 
wholly disappeared, having given place to a trade carried on 
for the world, in which she takes in corn, wool, sugar, coffee, 
and cotton, and turns them out again in the forms of cloth, 
yarn, and iron. The reverse is what we find in the move- 
ment of France. Forty years since the commerce of that 
country with foreign nations was but $100,000,000 ; now, it 
amounts to thrice that sum, still retaining nearly its original 
character, France being dependent on foreign raw materials 
for little more than is required for so compressing the bulky 
food so as to enable it cheaply to go abroad. 

Forty 3'ears since, Great Britain fed herself, and had nearly 
two hundred millions of dollars' worth of things produced from 
her own soil, to give to the world in exchange for the com- 
modities she required for her own consumption. Now, with 
millions of people whom she cannot feed, she has, in point of 
fact, nothing of her own to give in exchange for the enormous 
quantity of foreign products consumed at home. She has 
become a mere trader in the productions of other lands, 
changing their form by aid of the labor furnished by the 
people of those lands, and living entirely on the taxation thus 
imposed upon the world. 

§ T. It can not be too steadily borne in mind that there 
is a perfect solidarity of interest, of prosjjerity or adversity, 
among all the agriculturists of the xcorld. Tiiat all commu- 
nities prosper by the prosperity of all others, and that all 
suffer from injury received by others, is a truth that will, 
at some day, come to be admitted ; and then the farmers and 
planters everywhere will be found combining together to 
compel the maintenance, in the conduct of public aftairs, of a 
sound morality looking to the advancement of the interests 
of commerce, and to their own emancipation from the most 
oppressive of all tyrannies, that of trade. 

That large quantities of produce are received in England, 
and that very little is given in return, is a fact that does not 
admit of a doubt ; and it is one the conviction of whose ex- 
istence must sooner or later force itself upon the agricultural 
communities of the world. Were these latter now to arrive 
at the conclusion that they might as well mine and smelt 
their own ore, twist and weave their own cotton, and make 
their own earthenware ; and were they to say to the neople 



226 CHAPTER XVIII. § 1. 

engaged in doing this work for tbeni in England : — " Como. 
among us and mine ore, rmxke iron, spin thread, and weave 
cloth" — thus having the work performed at home, the effect 
would be, that instead of feeding several millions of foreigners, 
they would have but half a million of their own people to 
feed ; and that, instead of giving such prodigious masses of 
cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, lumber, dye-stuffs, and other raw 
products, in exchange for a little coarse cloth, and a very 
little iron, they would have nearly the whole of that immense 
quantity to apply to the purchase of improved machinery, or 
to that of the comforts and luxuries of life. What, however, 
would be the condition of the people of England? Where 
would be the commodities to pay for the supplies which tliey 
would still need ? Nowhere ! for Great Britain has now 
nothing of her own to sell. All her accumulations, and the 
major part of the supplies required for her own people, and 
for the support of government, are derived from profits — from 
buying cotton, wool, corn, and other raw products, at low 
prices and selling them as cloth and iron, at high ones ; and 
from the moment those profits ceased to be made, she would 
cease to have the power to feed or clothe her people without 
a total change of sydem. 

Such a change would look to elevating the workman, in- 
stead of depressing him, to developing his faculties instead 
of crushing them, to making him a man instead of a mere 
machine. Such a change, however, would require time, the 
tendency of the system for so long a period having been 
towards the brutification of the laborer, and towards reducing 
him to a condition near akin to slavery.* 

* Half a century since, Mr. Soutliey, after describing the state of 
tilings in Birmingham and Manchester, resulting from the effort to 
underwork the w«orld, told his countrymen that — "The poor must 
be kept poor, or such a state of things could not continue; there 
must be laws to regulate their wages, not by the value of their 
work, bat by the pleasure of their masters ; laws to prevent their 
removal from one place to another within the kingdom, and to 
prohibit their emigration. They would not," he continues, "be 
crowded in hot task-houses by day, and herded together in damp 
cellars by night ; they would not toil in unwholesome employments 
from sunrise until sunset whole days and quarters, for with twelve 
hours' labor the avidity of trade is not satisfied; they would not 
sweat night and day, keeping up this laus perennis of the Devil, 
before furnaces which are never suffered to cool, and breathing in 
vapors which inevitably produce disease and death ; — the poor 
would never do these things unless they were miserably poor, un- 
less they were in that state of abject poverty which precludes 



I 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 227 

In all countries and in all ages, centralization, over-popu- 
lation, and physical and mental decline have traveled hand 
in hand ; and therefore it is that no permanent prosperity 
has ever yet resulted from the attempt to establish the 
supremacy of trade. In none has that attempt been made 
more continuously and consistently than in England ; and 
therefore is it that all the phenomena she now presents are 
those of a system that is to be maintained so long as, and no 
longer than, the agricultural communities of this world shall 
show themselves willing to submit to it. 

The days of Pericles were those of Athens' greatest splei^- 
dor ; but that splendor was only the forerunner of decline, and 
of moral and political death ; the little landed proprietors 
having even then diminished in number ; land having become 
more and more monopolized ; and men having come to be 
regarded as little else than mere machines. The most splen- 
did days of Rome were those of the Antonines ; but even 
then she tottered to her fall, so near at hand. As had been 
before the case in Athens, the base of the societary structure 
had gradually narrowed, the free laborer having disappeared 
from the soil, and the land itself having become vested in 

instruction, and by destroying all hope for the future, reduces man, 
like the brutes, to seek for nothing beyond the gratification of 
present wants." — Espriella^s Letters, Letter xxxvii. 

" The whole mass of human life, as seen in England at the present 
day, presents violent extremes of condition, liuge mountains of 
wealth and luxury, contrasted with awful depths of poverty and 
wretchedness ; but in respect of mental ability, we find immense 
flats of uniformity, dead levels of respectable talent, with scarcely 
any such thing as originality, freshness, or high creative genius in 
any department of literature, art, science, or even trade." — John- 
son, England as it is, vol. i. p. 217. 

No system has ever been devised so destructive of human happi- 
ness and morals as that denounced by Dr. Smith, and justly described 
in the following passages from a speech made some years since on 
the occasion of an election at Bradford, in Yorkshire : — 

"That system is based on foreign competition. Now I assert, 
that under the hny-cheap-and-seU-dear principle, broiujhttohear on foreign 
covipetition, the ruin of the ivorking and small trading classes must go on. 
Why ? Labor is the creator of all wealth. A man must work before 
a grain is grown, or a yard woven. But there is no self-employment 
for the working-man in this country. Labor is a hired commodity, 
a thing in the market that is bouglit and sold ; consequently, as 
labor creates all wealth, labor is the first thing bouglit. — 'Buy 
cheap! buy cheap!' Labor is bought in the cheapest market. 
But now conies the next: 'Sell dear! sell dear!' Sell what? 
Labor's jirodnce. To whom ? To the foreigner — ay ! and to t' e laborer 
himself ; for labor, not being seif-enipjoyed, the laborer is not the 



228 CHAPTER XVIII. § T. 

absentee proprietors.* Like causes produce like effects, and 
the iiistorian of future times may tind that the period of 
England's greatest splendor had been the period in which 
property in land had become the privilege of the few — that 
in which the free laborer was gradually disappearing from 

partaker of the first-fruits of his toil. 'Buy cheap, sell dear!' 
How do you like it? Buy the woi-king-maii's labor cheaply, and 
s-ell back to that very working-man the produce of his own labor 
dear ! The principle of inherent loss is in the bargain. The em- 
ployer buys the labor cheap — he sells, and on the sale he must 
make a profit ; he sells to the working-man himself; and thus every 
bargain between employer and employed is a deliberate cheat on 
the part of the employer. Thus labor has to sink through eternal 
loss, that capital may rise through lasting fraud. But the system 
stops not here. This is brought to bear on foreign competition — whic'i 
means, that we must ruin the trade of other countries, as we have ruined the 
labor of our own. How does it work? The high-taxed country has 
to undersell the low-taxed. Competition abroad is constantly increasing, 
consequently cheapness must increase also. Therefore, wages in England 
must keep constantly falling. And how do they eflfect the fall '( 
By surplus labor. How do they obtain the surplus labor ? By mo- 
nopoly of the land, which drives more hands than are wanted into 
the factory. By monopoly of machinery, which drives those hands 
into the street ; by woman-labor, which drives the man from the 
shuttle ; by child-labor, which drives the woman fiom the loom. 
Then planting their foot upon that living base of surplus, they press 
Its aching heart beneath their heel, and cry — ' Starvation ! Who'll 
work ? A half loaf is better than no bread at all !' — and the writh- 
ing mass grasps greedily at their terms. Such is the system for the 
working-man. But, electors, how does it operate on you ? how does 
it affect the home trade, the shopkeeper, poor rate, and taxation? 
For eoery increase of competition abroad, there must be an increase of cheap- 
ness at home. Every increase of cheapness of labor is based on an 
increase of labor surplus, and this surplus is obtained by an increase 
of machinery. I repeat, how does this operate on you '> The 
Manchester liberal on my left establishes a new patent, and throws 
three hundred men as a surplus in the streets. Shopkeepers ! 
three hundred customers less ! Rate-payers ! three hundred paupers 
more ! But, mark me ! the evil stops not here. These three hundred 
men operate first to bring down the wages of thse who remain at work in 
their trade. The employer says : — ' Now I reduce your wages.' The 
men demur. Then he adds : — ' Do you see those three hundred 
men who have just walked out? You may change places if you like: 
they are sighing to come in on any terms, for they're starving.', 
The men feel it, and are crushed. All, you Manchester Liberal'" 
Pharisee of politics ! Those men are listening — have I got yo 
now ? But the evil stops not yet. Those men, driven from their own 
trade, seek employment in others, when they swell the surplus, and bring 
wages down . " 

* " The Scotch miners' strike, the most extensive and bitterly con 
tested which has ever been known in the west of Scotland, may be 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF PuRM. 229 

the soil — that in which the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine hud 
been invented — and that in which man was becoming, from 
day to day, more and more a mere instrument to be used by 
trade.* 

held to have terminated. When it was at its height, about .six 
weeks since, at least 40,000 men were engaged in it, remaining in 
a state of voluntary idleness. It is calculated that the sacrifice in 
wages alone amounted to more than £500,000 ; but to this must be 
added the loss of masters' profits, and the dislocation of business 
endured by all who depend on the coal and iron-mining trades. 
The men have returned to their work in a very gloomy mood, and 
under a burning sense of injustice." — London Paper, June 11, l.^S(i. 

* " While bread and meat are rising in price, man is growing 
cheaper. The reason we shall be told, why man is so cheap, and 
woman too, is that 'the supply exceeds the demand ;' but this is 
really nonsense." .... "The true reason why men are so cheap, 
is that the whole system of our laws and government rests upon 
the principle, that we should have a reverent care of the material 
productions, and leave the men to take care of themselves." .... 
" It is not the dress-maker we consider, but the dress ; it is not the 
butcher whose well-being we care for, but the meat; it is not the 
grocer whose moral and physical condition is the object, but the 
grocery ; it is not the baker or the bread-eater whose sole satisfac- 
tion we seek, but the bread. Nor is it even these goods for the 
sake of their utility to man, it is the goods as salable commodities 
alone. The bread may l)e adulterated, so that it passes and gets 
the price of a loaf; it is the same with the butcher's meat, it may 
rot ; with the gown, it may be of counterfeit stuff. But it is the 
trade in the gown, the meat, the grocery, the bread, etc., that is the 
object of existence ; and it is the trade to which our law-makers 
look, not the tradesman, the working-man, or the consumer." — 
Leader, July 12, ISSG. 

" I remembered that Adam Smith and Gibbon had told us that there 
would never again be a destruction of civilization by barbarians ; 
the Hood, they said, would no more return to cover the earth. 
And they seemed to reason justly, for they compared the immense 
strength of the civilized part of the world with the weakness of that 
part which remained savage, and asked from whence were to come 
those Huns and Vandals that were again to destroy civilization ? 
Alas ! it did not occur to them that in the very heart of great capi- 
tals, in the very neighborhood of splendid palaces, and churches, 
and theatres, and libraries, and museums, vice, ignorance, and 
misery might produce a race of Huns fiercer than those who marched 
under Attila, and Vandals more bent on destruction than those 
who followed Genseric." — Macaulay. 
20 



'230 CHAPTER XIX. § I. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

OF VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OF MATTER — CONTINUED. 

1. Agiicultural distress throughout the world, consequent upon the return of peaco in 
1815. Cause thereii', to be fuuud in the decline of manufactures, and in the separation 
of the consumer from the producer, in all the countries of the world, outside of Britain. 
fioueral adoption of measures looking to counteraction of the British policy. 

^ •>. Few natural advantages of Denmark. Following in the lead of France, her policy 
loL,ks, however, to the approximation of the consumer and the producer, and the relief 
of her farmers from the tax of transportation. Consequent prosperity of her people. 
Steady enlargement of the agricultural base of society. Constant increase in the power 
of assuciation and combination — in the development of individuality — and in the power 
of further progress-. 

J 3. Decline of Spanish manufactures, diminution in the power of association, and decay 
of agriculture, consequent upon the expulsion of the Moors, and the acquisition of distant 
colonies. Loss of those colonies followed by the adoption of a system tending to promote 
the growth of commerce, and diminish the traders' power. Great increase in the valuo 
of land, and in the freedom of man. 

§ 1. The peace which in 1815 closed the wars of the 
French Revolution, was hailed as the precursor of universal 
prosperity, but in its place it brought universal ruin. The 
mills and furnaces of America, as well as those of Continental 
Europe, were closed, because of the inability of farmers to 
purchase cloth or iron ; and fanners were ruined because 
of the inability of artisans to purchase food. Under the Con- 
tinental system manufactures had grown up in Germany, 
Russia, and other countries, while measures of non-inter- 
course with Great Britain, and the war of 1812, had produced 
the same effect in these United States. With the peace those 
manufactures disappeared, and the farmer ceased to be able 
to make exchanges except through the medium of foreign 
mills and furnaces. The man who must go to market, mud 
pay the cost of getting there, let that cost take what form it 
may ; and from the moment the mills of Germany were 
closed, and her farmers compelled to seek abroad a market 
for any portion of their products, however small, the price 
obtained for that small quantity determined that of the greatly 
larger one consumed at home. The more that needs to go 
abroad the greater is the decline in the central market, the 
larger become the sacrifices of the farmer, and the more 
perfect his dependence on foreign masters. With the disap- 
pearance of manufactures throughout the cofintries we have 
named, the less became the power at home to pay for food, 
the greater the proportion of the crop pressing upon a dim- 



OF VITAT. CLIANGES OF FORM. 231 

inutive foreign market, and the more dcc'xled and uni- 
versal tlie decline in the prices of all raw materials, land 
and labor included. With each succeeding day the laborer 
became more dependent upon his employer, and thus was 
furnished proof conclusive of the truth of the idea that tiio 
raising of raw materials for foreign markets is the proper 
work of the slave and tlie barbarian, and of them alone. 
The trader, however, profited, because there was increas«'d 
demand for his services. The ship-owner profited, because 
it made a demand for ships. The government-officer profited, 
because he had more food for less money. The annuitant 
profited, because his five per cent, purchased more food and 
cloth than ten had done before. The land-owner suflered, 
for he received but little rent; and the workman suffered, for 
he could not sell his labor. 

This state of affairs, which made of peace a greater calamity 
tiian war had been, led to the almost simultaneous adoptit)n, 
both in Europe and America, of measures looking to an 
increase of the power of association, the policy that had been 
seen to be so successfully pursued b}^ both France and 
England. The movement in Germany which led in 1S35 to 
the German Customs-Union, or Zoll-Yerein, commenced in 
1820, llussia and these United States following in 1824. 
Since then the relative positions of France and England have 
greatly changed ; the former having steadily adhered to the 
policy which seeks the extension of commerce ; while the 
latter has directed all her energies to the consolidation of the 
trader's power. Thus far the latter lias found no imitators 
but in these United States; Denmark and Spain, Russia, 
Sweden, and Germany, having continued to follow in the lead 
of France. What have been the results will now^ be shown. 

§ 2. Compared with Ireland, India, or Turkey, Denmark is 
a ])oor country. " She has," says one of the most enlightened 
of British travelers, " no metals or minerals, no fire ])Ower, or 
water-power;" nor "any products or capabilities for becom- 
ing a manufacturing country for supplying foreign consumers.' 
Having no harbors on the North Sea, her navigation is con- 
fined to the Baltic; and "her commerce is naturally limited 
to the home consumption of the necessaries and luxuries of 
civilized life which the export of her corn and other agricul- 
tviral products enables her to import." "She stands alone, 
in her corner of the world, exchanging lier loaf of bread which 
Khe can spare, for articles which she cannot provide for her- 



232 CHAPTER XIX. § 2. 

self; but still providing for herself every thing she can by 
her own industry." 

That industry is protected by heavy import duties imposed 
avowedly for the purpose of protecting commerce by bring- 
ing together the producer and the consumer. " The greater 
part of their clothing," says Mr. Laing, "linen, mixed linen 
and cotton, and woollen cloth, is home-made. The flax and 
wool are grown and manufactured on the peasant's farm ; the 
spinning and weaving done in the house ; the bleaching, dye- 
ing, and frilling done at home or in the village." 

The manufacture of clothing finds employment for almost 
the whole female population of the country, and for a con- 
siderable portion of the males during the winter months, and 
thus gives value to labor and skill that would otherwise be 
wasted. Under a different system, the money price of clothing 
would be less ; but what would become of this labor-power ? 
What would be its money value ? Ca,pital must be consumed 
in its production, and if, when produced, it be not put to use, 
that capital must be wasted, as we see to be the case in 
Ireland. 

The whole Danish system tends to the local employment 
of labor and capital, and therefore to the growth of wealth, 
the division of land, and the improvement of agriculture. 
As a consequence, there is a large and constantly increasing 
proportion of the real estate held in small farms. In the 
duchies of Holstein and Schleswig, with a population of 
662,500 souls, there are no less than 125,150 small proprietors 
of a class " corresponding to the small freeholders of the north 
of England." The- poorest laboring householder has a garden, 
some land, and a cow, while the larger farmers " attend the 
English cattle-shows, are educated men, acquainted witli 
every agricultural improvement, and have meetings and 
cattle-shows of their own, and publish the transactions and 
essays of the members. They use guano, and all the animal 
and chemical manures, have introduced tile-draining, ma- 
chinery for making pipes and tiles, and are no strangers to 
irrigation on their old grass meadows." The house accom- 
modation is good, the country people being " well lodged in 
buildings the materials of whose walls are brick, and the 
floors of wood." Every parish has its schoolmaster, as well 
as minister ; and the teachers are " men of much higher edu- 
cation than their Scotch brethren." Education, literature, and 
literary tastes, being universally diffused, libraries, museums, 
and newspapers are found in all the large towns, while in 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 233 

"every little one, tlie traveler finds educational institutions 
and indications of intellectual development, such as the 
taste for reading, music, theatrical representations, which 
he cannot but admit surpass what he finds in England 
among the same classes." 

The Danish system looks to the development of individu- 
ality ; and therefore is it that even in the poorest houses the 
windows " rarely want a bit of ornamental drapery, and are 
always decked with flowers and plants in pots," the whole 
people "having a passion for flowers," and having "leisure 
to be happy, amused, and educated." 

The material and intellectual condition of this people is 
declared bv Mr. Laing to be higher than that of any other in 
Europe ; while Mr. Kay places the people of England among 
the most ignorant and most helpless. " The houseless are 
unknown," and employment is fixed and stationary, because 
there is no foreign trade " to occasion great and sudden 
activity and expansion in manufactures, and equally sudden 
stagnation and relapse," such as periodically occur in all 
countries whose policy looks to increasing the dependence on 
machinery of transportation and of trade. 

§ 3. In no part of Europe did there exist, a few centuries 
since, so great a diversification of employments as in the 
South of Spain ; in none was commerce so great. With a 
constant succession of wars there came a change; the en- 
lightened and industrious Moors were expelled, and centrali- 
zation of the power of directing thought and action was 
established, at the moment when the discoveries in the East 
and West gave power to the crown to direct the forces of the 
nation to wars of conquest. But here, as everywhere else, 
centralization has gone hand in hand with povei'ty and weak- 
ness. Before that period the kingdom contained thirty mil- 
lions of people, whereas it has now but half that number ; and 
the population of its largest cities now numbers not more 
tiian one-fourth to one-eighth what it once had been. In 
1778 there were counted 1511 abandoned villages. The 
great middle class of artisans had died out, and land had 
liecome more and more consolidated in the hands of the 
nobles and the Church. Commerce had been destroyed, and 
the necessity for the transporter's services had greatly grown. 
Raw materials of every kind, in their passage from the place 
of production to that of consum])tion, were burthened with 
heavy imposts. The whole system tended effectually to pre- 



234 CHAPTER XIX. § 3. 

vent llie artisan from taking his place beside tlie grower of 
food and wool ; hence the depopulation and weakness of a 
country that had been once so powerful. 

Fortunately for Spain, the day arrived when she was to 
lose her colonies, and be compelled to look at home for 
revenue. From that day to the present, her course, thougli 
slow, has been steadily onward, each year having brougiit 
with it increased diversity of employment, and greater power 
of association and combination. Among the earliest measures 
looking to the emancipation of France and Germany, was 
the removal of restrictions upon the commerce in land, the 
great instrument of production ; and so has it been in Spain. 
Forty years since but twenty millions of acres were owned 
by the men employed in cultivation, while twice that quantity 
was held by the nobles and the Church. The property of the 
latter having since been sold, the number of small proprietors 
has more than doubled. 

A further step toward freedom was found in the abolition 
of taxes by which the internal commerce had been impeded, 
and most especially those on the transport of raw materials, 
and in the substitution of a land tax payable alike by 
tlie great and the small proprietor. As a consequence 
of all this, and of the maintenance of efficient protection 
against foreign interference, the cotton, woollen, silk, linen, 
and iron manufactures have since advanced with great 
rapidity. With growing proximity of the market, likewise, 
agriculture is becoming more a science. Thirty years since, 
the value of its products was but 232,000,000 of reals; 
whereas it is now more than thrice that sum. The megins 
of transportation were then so bad that men might die of 
famine in Andalusia, while grain was wasting on the fields 
of Castile. Even yet, prices are extremely different in the 
several parts of the kingdom ; but with the construction of 
i"ailroads and the rapid development of internal commerce 
tlie modes of communication have been so much improved as 
closely to approximate the prices paid by the consumer and 
those received by the producer. 

With increased power of association there is a steady im- 
provement in the provision for mental culture. Half a 
century since the number of students at all the educational 
establishments was but 30,000. Now, the number in the 
public schools alone, for which there is a large annual appro- 
priation, is as 1 to 15 of the total population. 

The effect of the changes above described is seen in a great 



I 



OF VITAL ciicNGES OF Fon>r. 235 

increase of the value of land. The church property that has 
been sold has commanded an average of nearly double the 
price at which it was officially assessed ; and we need desire 
no better evidence of progress than thus is furnished. 

The progress of Spain has been already great, but it is 
slower than it should be, because both France and England 
are engaged in the effort to prevent the growth of nianufac- 
lures in the Peninsula, believing, apparently, that their own 
increase in wealth and power is dependent on the extent to 
which they can impoverish their neighbors. At an expense 
ten times exceeding the profit on the trade with Spain 
England retains Gibraltar, to be used, in defiance of treaty 
stipulations, as a smuggling depot ; and her economists dis- 
cern much advantage in the existing relations with Portugal, 
because of the facilities thus afforded for sending woollens and 
cottons "by contraband into Spain." In trade and war the 
end is held to sanctify the means; and as the British policy 
looks only to the extension of trade, it is natural that British 
teachers should h.ave arrived at the conclusion that the smug- 
gler is " the great reformer of the age," and that their govern- 
ment should afford every facility for the violation of the laws 
of all countries that seek, by means of protection, to promote 
the growth of foreign and domestic commerce. 

A more short-sigiited policy than that of both those nations 
towards Spain cannot be imagined. By keeping her poor, they 
destroy her productive power, and prevent her from obtaining 
the abilit}' to purchase the products of the land and labor of 
their people. The total amount of their joint sales to her 
scarcely exceeds, as we believe, the sum annually expended 
in the effort to prevent her from manufacturing for herself. 
Rich in ores, and abounding in fertile land that is poorly, 
even where at all, cultivated, were she permitted to carry into 
full effect a policy looking to the development of her mineral 
i-usources — to the utilization of the products of her soil that 
now are wasted — to the husbanding of the powers of her 
people — and to the enlargement of domestic commerce — she 
W(mld, in a few years, be enabled to purchase from abroad 
twice as much, and thus aid in the improvement of the con- 
dition of the people of both France and England — while 
relieving both from the heavy expense to which, in the effort 
to govern her, they now subject themselves. Common sense, 
common honesty, and true policy, travel always together 
whether in private or in i)ublic life ; and where they are most 
combined, population t.ends most rapidly to increase, with 
cimstant (lei^liiie in the dread of over-population. 



236 CHAPTER XX. § 1, 

CHAPTER XX. 

OP VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OP MATTER — CONTINUED. 

§ 1. The German manufacturing system due to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, lis 
gradual development down to the close of the war in 1815. Its decline, under tha frte 
trade system which followed the peace. I'irst Prussian tariff having for its object the 
divorsiflcation of the employments of the people. 

§ 2. Gradual formation of the ZoU-Verein, or Customs Union. Great increase of foreign 
and domestic commerce consequent upon the adoption of measures tending to the 
emancipation of German land from the oppressive tax of transportation. Protection 
having cheapened finished commodities, Germany now exports them. Having raised 
the priess of raw materials, they are now imported. 

J 3. Growing division of the land, accompanied by an enlargement of the proportions borne 
by the agricultural class to the mass of which society is composed. Increased respect 
for the rights of property, consequent upon its more general diffusion among the people. 
Steady increase in the freedom of man, and in the strength of the State. 

§ 4. Eude character of Russian agriculture half a century since. Growth of manufiictures 
under the Continental system of Napoleon. Their disappearance under the free trade 
system. Ke-adoption of the policy of Colbert, and its effects. Great increase in the 
quantity and value of agricultural products since the re-adojition of protection. 

g 5. Increase in the competition for the purchase of the labi rer's services and glowing 
freedom of man. 

§ 6. Obstacles standing in the way of the creation of a scientific agiiculture. Communism 
and its effects. 

g 7. Growing individuality among the people, with corresi5onding growth of strength in 
the State. 

§ 8. Sweden, like Russia, follows in the lead of France — maintaining the policy of Colbert, 
to the exclusion of that advocated by the economists of Britain. Its effects, as exhibited 
in biiuging the consumer and producer into close proximity to each other. Compai-ative 
movement of the population, and of the supjily of food. 

J 9. Division of land and increase of its value — resulting from its emancipation fi'om the 
ta.\ of transportation. Intellectual development, consequent \ipon the creation of local 
centres of activity. 

2 10. Social decentralization gi-adually correcting the eiTors of political centralization. 

J 11. Differing in race, habits, manners, and religion, France and Germany, Spain and 
Denmark, Sweden and Russia, are agreed in nothing, except in the maintenance of a 
policy which looks to the promotion of association, the extension of commerce, and tlie 
emancipation of the land from the tax of transportation, in accordance with the ideas of 
Adam Smith. In all of them agriculture steadily advances, the land becomes more 
divided, and men become more free. Agreeing in nothing else, Portugal and Turkey, 
Ireland and India, unite in the maintenance of the policy advocated by the Ricardo- 
Malthusian school. In all of them agriculture declines, the laud becomes consolidated, 
and the freedom of man has almost wholly passed away. 

" Germany," says Professor List, the man to whose patri- 
otic labors the existence of the Zoll-Verein, or Customs 
Union, is due, — " Germany owes her first progress in manu- 
factures to the I'evocation of the Edict of Nantes, and to the 
numerous refugees who brought with them the manufactures 
of woollens, silks, glass, china, gloves, jewellery, and many 
other articles." 

The first public steps for the encouragement of German 
manufactures were taken by Austria and Prussia; in the 
former, under Charles YI. and Maria Theresa, but more 



I 



i 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FCUM. 2^7 

especially under Joseph II. Austria had previously sufiTered 
much from the expulsion of the Protestants, her most indus- 
trious inhabitants ; nevertheless, by the aid of protective 
duties, improvements in the rearing of sheep, construction 
of roads, etc., the industrial arts made remarkable progress 
even under the reign of Maria Theresa ; and still greater 
under that of Joseph II., in spite of the precipitation with 
which that monarch urged on measures of reform for which 
the country was not yet prepared. 

Prussia had suffered much from the Thirty Years' War ; 
her cloth manufacture had been almost annihilated, and the 
larger part of the manufacturers had transferred themselves 
to Saxony. At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, how- 
ever, a great number of the fugitives, encouraged by the Great 
Elector, settled in Prussia, and introduced many new branches 
of industry. Succeeding rulers, especially Frederick II., pro- 
moted agriculture, and stimulated home manufactures, by 
means of a revenue system the provisions of which were of 
a highly protective character. 

The Continental system of Napoleon, hov>'ever, constitutes 
the great era in the history of German as well as of French 
industry ; for under it commenced the forw ard progress of 
every kind of manufacture, with corresponding increase in the 
attention to the breeding of sheep, the production of wool, 
and the development of domestic commerce. " On the return 
of peace, however," continues List, the English, who had 
greatly improved their machinery, renewed their rivalry ; 
and general ruin and distress ensued, especially in the country 
of the Lower Rhine, which after being for some years attached 
to France, now lost her markets. At length, in 1818, the cry 
of distress could no longer be unheeded, and now a Prussian 
tariff gave the protection needed against that inundation of 
English goods by means of which Great Britain sought to 
stifle in the cradle the industry of other nations.* Very 
moderate in its duties, this tariff had the merit of being 
specific, and not ad valorem, thus not only preventing frauds 
and smuggling, but also encouraging the production of those 
articles of coarse manufacture the quantity and bulk of which 

* It was at this period that Mr., now Lonl, Rroughani. declared in 
his seat in the House of Commons, tliat " Eiia;land coul<l all'ord to 
bear some loss on the export of her aoods, /o/- tlir jmr/iose of destroi/- 
ing foreign manufactures in the crwllef^ anil that the weli-knowu 
liberal, Mr. Hume, also expressed the desire that "Me manufactures 
of' the Continent might be strangled iu the cruille." 



238 CHAPTER XX. § 2. 

gives them their great importance. Tliis measure, however, 
was a heavy blow to the smaller States of Germany, already 
excluded from the markets of Austria, France, and England, 
many of which, too, were enclosed within the Prussian 
limits. 

§ 2. Germany was, at that date, entirely disunited, each 
State having its local custom-houses. In 1819, however, 
Prussia effected an arrangement with Mecklenburg, Saxe- 
Weimar, and other States, in virtue of which her tariS" became 
the general one, and the internal custom-houses disappeared. 
Prussia continued her efforts for inducing other States to join 
in a general system, but for some time without effect ; the 
opposition being headed by Hanover, then entirely under 
British influence, by Saxony, and by Hesse. At length, 
however, in 1831, Hessej'oined the Prussian league, and from 
that day the German Union dates its existence. 

Thus was accomplished the most important European 
movement of the present century. By means of it Northern 
Germany. has become one great society, with entire freedom 
of circulation, its several States i-etaining their perfect indi- 
viduality, governing themselves in their own manner, and 
possessing all the local centres of activity that had before 
existed. The effect is shown by the following facts : — 

In 1825 Germany exported to England alone 28,000,000 
pounds of wool, mostly paid for by the return of the same 
wool in the form of cloth. In 1851 the net quantity imported 
into Germany was 25,000,000, and the quantity of cloth ex- 
ported, was 12,000,000. Not less, thus, than 50,000,000 
pounds has been added to the domestic consumption, a con- 
sequence of that approximation of the prices of raw materials 
and of finished merchandize by means of which the producer 
of food and of wool had become enabled to consume a much 
larger quantity of the commodities produced. The import 
of cotton, and cotton twist had, in the meantime, so largely 
grown, that the export of cotton cloth, more than ten years 
since, amounted to 159,241 ewts., leaving for domestic con- 
sumption, 1,200,000 cwts., and proving that while cloth had 
become cheap, the power of consumption among the agricul- 
tural population had greatly grown. 

Thirty years since, Germany supplied the world with 
rags, and imported most of the paper for which she could 
make demand. Since then, the net import of rags has 
exceeded 40,000,000 pounds, while the export of paper ha^ 



OF VITAL CHANGES OP FORM. 239 

become very large. The prices of the two had greatly ap- 
pro.Kiinated, causing a home consumption that absorbed i.ot 
merely the largely increased quantity of rags produced at 
home, but, in addition, more than thirty millions of pounds 
of those obtained from abroad. 

In 1830 the total quantity of coal mined was but 8,200,000 
t<nuies, of 391 lbs. each. In 1854 it amounted to 46,000,000. 
ill 1834 there were made 76,000 tons of bar iron. In 1850 
the (luantity had risen to 200,000, and that of pig iron to 
600,000 tons. In 1849, not a furnace was to be seen in the 
neighborhood of Minden, Westphalia; "now," says a recent 
iraveler, "they stand like towers about the broad plain." 
Ot the numerous copper-mines of Prussia, a large proportion 
have been opened within the last few years. Every mine, 
mill, and furnace, aids in the improvement of the roads, the 
utilization of the powers of nature, and the development of 
individual faculties; thus increasing the value of man while 
diminishing that of all the commodities required for his use. 

The value of the cotton and woollen goods exported in 1851 
was $25,000,000, the chief part of which consisted of the food 
that had been combined with the wool in the process of con- 
verting it into cloth. As a consequence of this, the necessity 
for seeking abroad a market for food had so greatly diminished, 
that the )iet export from the country which thirty years since 
was regarded as the great granary of Europe, had fallen to 
10,000,000 bushehs. 

Prussia has now a mile of railroad for every five square 
miles of surface ; and local combination, as evidenced by tiie 
formation of joint stock companies for mining coal, making 
cloth, constructing roads, building steamers, or granting 
security against loss by tire, is increasing with a rapidity that 
is scarcely anywhere else exceeded. With every step in that 
direction local centres spring up, the demand for labor grows, 
and the farmer finds the market brought nearer to his door, 
with constantly increasing power to command the use of 
improved machinery — ilie aocielary motion, whatsoever its 
dii-ection, beimj one of constant acceleration. 

The facts above given prove conclusively — 

I. That the prices of raw products have tended upwards, 
to the benefit of German farmers, and to that of the agricul- 
tural interest of tiie world at large : 

II. That the prices of all manufactured commodities have 
tended downward, enabling the farmer to \)Yo[\i doultly : 
first, by obtaining more of the precious metals for his corn ; 



240 CHAPTER XX. § 3. 

second, by obtaining more cloth for any given quantity of 
those metals : 

III. That the reduction in the cost of conversion has been 
so great as to enable the German people largely to supply 
the world with food and wool in the form of cloth ; and thus 
to aid the farmers everywhere in obtaining supplies of 
clothing: 

. ly. That the improved condition of German farmers has 
enabled them greatly to increase their demands upon the 
tropical countries for cotton, coffee, rice, and other rude pro- 
ducts of the earth : 

Y. That under the system of Colbert, now adopted in that 
country, commerce grows steadily, with corresponding decline 
in the trader's power : 

VI. That with the increase of commerce there has been a 
rapid increase of individuality in the great community that 
has now been formed, manifested by a steady and regular 
increase of public and private revenue. 

These results correspond precisely, as the reader will per- 
ceive, with those obtained in France, Spain, and Denmark ; 
while they are directly the reverse of those observed in Ire- 
land and India, Turkey and Portugal, all of which latter are 
subjected to the British system. 

§ 3. In no country has there been a more rapid increase 
than is here observed in the diversification of employment. 
Everywhere men are beginning to combine the labors of the 
workshop with those of the field and garden ; thus benefiting 
their health by out-door labor, and adding to their comfort 
by the power of raising their own milk and vegetables ; while 
the farmer, being enabled to raise a succession of crops, is 
placed more beyond the reach of those accidents by which 
those who are dependent on a single crop are so often 
ruined. Under these circumstances, every kind of soil is 
utilized, and agriculture becomes a science. "Everywhere," 
says an eminent agricultural writer, " there is a singular and 
increasing interest in the breeding of cattle," while " almost 
universal progress has been made in the cultivation of the 
soil." 

The land is being more and more divided, and is highest in 
price where small properties are most numerous. " Peopl6 
of all classes," says Mr. Kay, in his excellent volumes on 
the Social Condition of the people of E)i gland and the Conti- ^ 
nent, " are able to become proprietors. Shopkeepers and the 



I 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 241 

laborers of the towns purehase gardens outside the town, 
where they and their families work in the fine evenings, in 
raising vegetables and fruits for their households ; farmers 
purchase the land they used formerly to rent ; and the peas- 
ants purchase farms of their own." The possession of property 
produces here, as everywhere, respect for the rights of prop- 
erty. " All the poor have friends or relations who are 
proprietors," and each feels that he may some day become 
so himself. All are, consequently, " immediately interested 
in the preservation of property, and in watching over the 
rights and interests of their neighbors." 

As employments become diversified, man becomes more 
and more free. Eighty years since, the Elector of Hesse sold 
large numbers of his poor subjects to England to aid her in 
establishing unlimited control over these her American col- 
onies. The German people generally were then enslaved, 
badly fed, clothed, and lodged, and ruled by petty tyrants. 
The language of the higher classes was French, German hav- 
ing been then considered as fit only for the poor serf. German 
literature was then but struggling into existence. Little was 
known of the mechanic arts, and the machinery used in agri- 
culture was of the very rudest kind. Even later, a quasi 
slave trade furnished cargoes to most of the vessels that 
passed between America and the German cities. Men, 
women, and children, were then brought out and sold for 
terms of years, and many of the most respectable people of 
the Middle States are descended from those "indented" Ger- 
man servants. Now, German}^ stands first in Europe in 
point of intellectual development, and is advancing in the 
physical and moral condition of her people with a rapidity 
exceeding that of any other portion of the Eastern hemi- 
sphere. 

§ 4. With an immense territory and a scattered population, 
Ivussia was, half a century since, an almost purely agricul- 
tural country, in which man was the slave of his fellow- man. 
Manufactures having been then almost unknown, caravans 
laden with the products of British and other foreign work- 
shops, traversed the interior and supplied even the distant 
tribes of Asia. Even so late as 182.5 the country was com- 
pelled to look abroad for the cloth required for army purposes. 

Russian produce having then to seek the markets of the 
world in its rudest form, burdened with enormous charges for 
transportation, there was little power for maintaining foreign 
21 



242 CHAPTER XX. § 4. 

commerce, and the imports, small as tliey were, consisted 
chiefly in articles of luxury demanded by the masters of the 
serfs. 

The Continental system gave to manufactures a temporary 
impulse, but with the close of the war tliere came a I'earl'u) 
change in the opposite direction. The Emperor Alexander 
having taken his lessons in political economy from a thorough 
believer in the omnipotence of trade, determined to carry into 
practical effect the lessons he had learned, and tlie results 
speedily exhibited themselves in the fact, that British goods 
flowed in, Russian gold flowed out, the currency became 
largely depreciated, tlie government was paralyzed, and the 
manufacturers were ruined. 

The year 1824 wimessed the inauguration of a new system, 
looking to increase in the power of association through- 
out the empire, and harmonizing with the system pursued by 
France. Commerce and manufactures began again to grow, 
and with such rapidity that, ten years later, Kussian cloth 
was sent to the Asiatic fairs. Since then, Central Asia has 
been chiefly supplied by the products of Russian looms, while 
even in Affghanistan and China they have- been rapidly sup- 
planting British cloths, although the latter have had great 
advantage in point of transporiation. 

From that time until quite recently the protective policy 
has been steadily maintained, and its effects in economizing 
human power have exhibited themselves in the constantly im- 
proving condition of the people ; as shown by the following 
facts derived chiefly from the work of M. Tegoborski on the 
[)roductive forces of the Empire, published a few years since. 
The value in money of the agricultural produce was then 
$1,500,000,000. This, hov^^ever, gives but a small idea of the 
quantity, which is treble that of France, altliough the distance 
of the market causes the total price to be somewhat less. 
The quantity of cereals produced was given at 1,600,000,000 
of bushels. Prices, too, had risen with remarkable steadiness, 
while the export of wheat had averaged but 15,000,000 
bushels, or less than one per cent, of the total cereal product. 
What becomes of all the vast amount of food produced ? 
It is consumed by th» people who make cloth, build houses 
and factories, mine gold, iron ore, and coal, build ships, and 
jierform the various services incident to an extensive domestic 
commerce. The number of persons more or less employed in 
the flax and henqj manufactures alone was then estimated at, 
5,000,000, and the consumption of linen cloth at 550,000,000 



1 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 243 

yards, or 9 yards per head of tlie population. This branch 
of manufacture was found everywhere, and "had its seat in 
the humblest cabins." The consumption of wool was about 
100,000,000 pounds, or If pounds per head, and made demand 
for a large amount of labor to be employed in its conversion 
into cloth. 

The first cotton mill was then but little more than twenty 
years old, yet were there then no less than 495 factories, em- 
j)loying; 112,427 operatives. Tlie peasants received the yarn 
from the contractors, and occupied themselves in weaving 
during the winter. Much cotton velvet was manufactured 
for China, such as had formerlv been supplied from English 
looms. In five years — from 1846 to 1850 — the importation 
of raw cotton had doubled, while that of yarn, for which the 
country had been entirely dependent upon Britain, had much 
diminished. The production of iron had steadily increased, 
while that of gold and silver had risen to more than 
$20,000,000. 

Throughout Russia, the tendency to local activity and com- 
bination is very great indeed. In some parts of the country 
all are potters ; in another, all are rope and harness-makers. 
On one estate, all are makers of candles; on another, of felt 
hats ; on a third, they are smiths, employed chiefly in making 
axes. The families of a district unite in a sort of joint-stock 
company, selling the product of their labor and dividing 
among themselves the proceeds. 

Nor is it in the coarser manufactures, alone, that Russia is 
succes.sful. The ingenuit\^ and skill of her workmen are 
becoming conspicuous in all departments of industry, as was 
proved but a few years since on the occasion of the Great 
Exhibition in the English Crystal Palace. The labor thus 
given is, all jf it, power economized that would otherwise be 
vmded. As that economy grows, men become more free, 
while communities increase in power. 

§ 5. Resistance to the system which looks to cheapening 
labor and raw materials, is everywhere attended by increase 
in the freedom of the laborer. So has it been in Russia ; the 
great proprietors having permitted their serfs, on payment 
of a small annual rent, to sell their own labor at its market 
price. This was a preparation for the emancipation that has 
been since effected. 

In that di'-ection, however, had tended every measure of 
the government. In 1827, the serf had been declared an 



244 CHAPTER XX. § 6. 

integral part of the soil, and thus had been abolished \Ue. 
trade in human flesh. Shortly after, a great bank had been 
established for making loans to the great land-owners on 
conditions which had tended to make the crown propri- 
etor; and the serfs, in becoming crown peasants, became 
tax-payers, free to employ, at their pleasure, both their land 
and labor. Next, to the serf had been secured the right of 
possessing property, of entering into contracts, and of testi- 
fying in a court of justice. As yet, he could not buy liis 
own freedom, but he became free by the purchase of the 
soil to which he was attached, and the hope to accomplish 
this stimulated his industry, formed him to habits of frugality 
and sobriety, and thus made preparation for his ultimate 
entire freedom. 

§ 6. The reader must bear in mind that the subject under 
consideration is the question of progress, not of actual con- 
dition. Russia still labors under immense difficulties, result- 
ing from the almost universal existence of the communal 
system. Everywhere throughout the empire land remains 
undivided, being held in common and distributed annually 
among the members of the commune. As under such cir- 
cumstances thei'e can be no permanent property in land, there 
are few inducements to devote labor to the making of any 
permanent improvements upon it. Agriculture, therefore, 
makes but little progress, trade and manufactures withdraw- 
ing labor from it. Whatever may be the accumulations 
resulting from trade, they remain the private property of the 
individual, and at his death he may bequeath them to his 
wife and children ; whereas, however great may be the money 
value added to the land, that value becomes the property of 
the community, no part of it remaining with '\w family of 
the man by whose labors the improvements have been made. 

Communism is everywhere the same, whether we meet 
with it in Russia or in France, in the customs of a people, or 
amongst teachers who fail to see that the power of associa- 
tion grows with the development of individuality, and seek 
to promote the growth of the former by the destruction of 
the latter. As now presented in the books of commu- 
nistic teachers, it can be regarded only as a project for reduc- 
ing man to a state of barbarism, and hence it is that all efforts 
at its introduction among civilized men have, thus far, so 
signally failed. 

Such are some of the obstacles standing in the way of 



I 



OF VIT.AL CHANGES OF FORM. 245 

soiontifii: agriculture. Tliey are great, but great as the}' are, 
they are much exceeded in amount by those resulting from 
the want that still exists, of the proper diversification of em- 
ployments, without which association and combination can- 
not take place. Throughout large portions of the empire, 
the farmer cannot, in any manner, vary the objects of his cul- 
tivation. He must confine himself to those commodities 
alone which will bear transportation ; and he cannot raise 
potatoes, turnips, hay, or any other of the bulky articles 
which require to be consumed at home. He niutii exhaust 
liis land, and his crops muHt therefore diminish, with constant 
increase in the liability to disease, by which the}' are so often 
swept away — reducing his family and himself to poverty, if 
not starvation. He must confine himself to the cultivation 
of the poorer soils, so large a portion of the crop being con- 
sumed in the work of transportation that he is unable to obtain 
machinery by help of which to clear and drain the rich ones. 
He thus becomes from year to year more and more the slave 
of nature, and, as a consequence, more and more dependent 
upon the chances of trade, and slave to his fellow-man. If 
the crops of Western Europe prove large, he finds himself to 
be nearly ruined. Therefore is he forced to pray for droughts 
and frosts, and other causes of damage to his fellow-men ; 
and all because of his inability to determine for himself how 
to employ his labor and his land. Commerce would give him 
that power, and enable him to rejoice in the prosperity of 
other nations; but commerce now grows nowhere in the 
absence of the system inaugurated b}' that first of modern 
statesmen, Colbert. 

The differences of price in the various parts of the empire 
are enormous — rye being in one place worth less than 1 rouble 
per tchetwert, while in another it sells at more than 11, and 
wheat varying between 2 and 13 roubles. Such is the 
taxation resulting from a necessity for dependence on distant 
markets. 

§ T. The system of centralization sought to be established 
y the British people requires cheap labor at home and 
(ibroad, and tends everywhere to its production. The less 
the domestic commerce, the greater is the dependence of other 
nations on the people who have ships and wagons ; and the 
le.^8 is their power to develop the resources of their land, or 
to increase the quantity of raw materials requiring to I)e 
tiansported. This, of course, leads to efforts at stinmlation 



246 CHAPTER XX. § 8. 

of the various communities of the world into com}ictition with 
each other for the sale of raw products in the distant market, 
to their own great injury, but to the present, though only 
temporary, benefit of the distant trader ; who thus kills the 
goose that he may obtain the golden eggs. The more wool 
that can be obtained from Australia, the greater must be the 
decline in price of that of Russia ; the more cotton and hemp 
that can be obtained from India, the lower must be the prices 
of Russian hemp and American cotton ; and the greater must 
be the dependence of the agriculturists of both upon the 
chances and changes of the distant market, and upon the 
combinations that there so readily are formed. Hence it is 
that we witness among the purely agricultural communities 
of the world so entire an absence of the power of self-govern- 
ment — so great an inability to make the roads that are so 
much required — and so complete a dependence upon the dis- 
tant trader for all the machinery of trade and transportation. 
Individuality, -whether in men or nations, grows with the 
growth of commerce. By aid of efficient protection it grew 
rapidly in Russia ; and hence it has been, that she has, in the 
last decade, exhibited a power of resistance to assaults from 
without that would not have been possible had the free-trade 
policy been maintained, and liad she continued to follow in 
the lead of England. That such M^ould have been the case, 
is clearly shown by Mr. Cobden, who furnishes the most con- 
clusive argument in favor of French and Russian policy, 
when telling his readers that " to have cut off the people of 
the Russian Empire," in the period from 1815 to 1824, "from 
all commerce with foreign countries, would have been to 
doom a portion of its people to nakedness." The system 
subsequently adopted tended towards decentralization, indi- 
viduality, life, and freedom ; whereas, that urged upon the 
world by Mr. Cobden — having for its object an increase in 
the necessity for the services of the trader — tends towards 
centralization, which is always the road towards slavery and 
death. 

§ 8. Sweden is naturally a very poor country, much of its 
surface being hilly, and even mountainous, and the soil and 
climate but little favorable to agriculture. In her commercial 
policy she has followed the lead of France, her system having 
been based upon the idea of bringing the consumer and tlie 
producer together, and thus diminishing the tax of transpor- 
tation. Thirty years since, her tariff was slightly modified 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 247 

in the direction of free trade, but six years later that step 
was retraced, protection having been then restored. Let us 
now examine what have been the effects. 

The manufacture of cotton goods in 1831 was about 
2,000,000 ells; but ten years later it had risen to 6,000,000 
In tiie former the import of raw cotton was 800,000 pounds; 
in tiie latter it had reached 1,800,000, and in 1852 was one 
half nmre. The import of hemp, hides, and wool, had also 
steadily increased. The manufacture of woollen cloth is 
lound everywhere throughout the country, in the houses of 
the peasants, giving employment to time and mind that 
would otherwise be wasted ; and yet the cloth annually made 
in larger establishments exceeded, ten N'ears since, 1,200,000 
yards. In the short space of thirteen years the iron manu- 
facture had nearly doubled. In the single year 1853 no fewer 
than 327 new mines were opened, and double that number of 
old works re-opened. 

The movement of population has been as follows : — 

1751 1,795,000 1805 2,414,000 1853 3,482,000 

We have here a constantly accelerated movement, giving 
increased power of association and combination, and facilitat- 
ing the further growth of wealth. 

The quantity of physical and mental effort given to the 
work of conversion has, as the reader has seen, greatly in- 
creased, yet so far has this been from producing a diminution 
in the power to devote time and mind to the work of cultiva- 
tion, that it has wonderfull}' increased, as is shown by the 
following facts: — In the ten years ending 1787, the average 
import of grain was 190,000,000 pounds, or 100 pounds per 
head. In the decade ending 1853 it was but 34,000,000, 
while the population had almost doubled. That the people 
were far better fed in the latter period than in the former is 
j)roved by their greatly increased purchase of cloth, food being 
the first of man's animal wants requiring to be satisfied. The 
amount of coffee, sugar, and other foreign articles consumed 
lias greatly increased, showing that the growth of commerce 
at home had been attended with the increase of commerce 
abroad, the power to buy the p7-oducts of other nations being 
dependent on the power to sell one^s own. 

§ 9. As commerce grows, land grows in price, and be- 
come.-? divided. The peasant proprietors in Sweden were 
reckoned, twenty years since, at 141,974 ; and that the ten- 



248 CHAPTER XX. § 9. 

dency is toward further division is shown in the fact, that from 
1822 to 1837 t.he sales by noble proprietors amounted to 
10,000,000 of Swedish dollars, the land thus sold being pur- 
chased in almost equal quantities by the middle and the 
peasant classes. 

What is the condition of the small proprietors, and how 
manufactures and agriculture are combined throughout the 
larger portion of the kingdom, will be seen from a perusal of 
the following passages from a distinguished British traveler : 

" Angermanland, in which I now am, is like a manufactur- 
ing district in England. The loom is heard in every room 
of every house. Every burn-side has its webs of linen on its 
green banks. This manufacture is entireh' domestic, being 
carried on upon the little farm on which the flax grows, and 
the whole by the females of the house, except the ploughing 
and sowing. It is not, however, confined to linen for house- 
hold use, or for family clothing. The linen is sold all over 
the kingdom ; and at one little inn, Borsta, there was a 
table laid out, as we sometimes see in manufacturing districts 
in England, with products of the place." " These people seem 
to unite, on a small scale, all the advantages of a manufactur- 
ing and agricultural population more fully than in any district 
1 have ever seen. The men do the farm business, while the 
women drive a not less profitable branch of industry. There 
is full employment at the loom, or in spinning, for the old and 
young of the female sex. Servants are no burden. About 
the houses there is all the neatness of a thriving manufactur- 
ing, and the abundance of an agricultural, population. The 
table linen laid down even for your glass of milk and piece 
of bread is always clean ; the beds and sheets are always nice 
and white. Everybody is well clad, for their manufacturing, 
like their farming, is for their own use first, and the surplus 
only, as a secondary object, for sale ; and from the number 
of little nick-nacks in their households, the good tables and 
chairs, window-curtains and blinds, (which no hut is with- 
out,) clocks, fine bedding, papered rooms, and a few books, it 
is evident that they lay out their winnings on their- own 
comfort, and that these are not on a low scale of social well- 
being."* 

The more perfect the power to maintain commerce, tlie 
greater is always the tendency towards mental development. 

* Laing, Tour in Sweden, pp. 191-192. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 249 

It is, therefore, no matter of surprise, that here, ab in Den- 
mark, we find a rapidl}'" growing literature developing itself 
in the capital, while exhibiting itself in the smaller towns in 
the form of well-provided book-shops " I am here," says 
Mr. Laing, writing from a village in Lapland, "in a cleaner 
and more comfortable house than in any of our smaller towns 
in the north of Scotland, excepting, perhaps, Inverness, can 
boast of. In this little town of 1100 inhabitants, at a distance 
of 470 miles from the capital, there are two good booksellei's' 
shops, in which 1 found a good stock of modern books, among 
others, the Life of Columbus, by Washington Irving, in 
English." 

Such was the state of things nearly thirty years since, and 
so far as we may judge by the import of paper, the course 
has been steadily onward, the quantity imported having risen 
to 400,000 pounds in the three years ending in 1853, against 
150,000 in those ending in 1846. 

§ 10. The tendency to equality grows with the growth of 
wealth ; and therefore is it that we find in Sweden a slow 
and gradual correction of the evils of political centralization. 
Thirty years since two-thirds of the land paid all the taxes, 
while its owners were excluded from representation in the 
legislative body. Now, " all who belong to the peasant class 
are entitled to represent and be represented in the Chamber 
of the Peasantry." Freedom here, as everywhere, grows 
with the diversification of employments, doing so despite 
the existence of a political centralization of the most opj)res- 
sive kind. Functionaries abound to such an extent that, 
according to Mr. Laing, " it may truly be said that they are 
not made for the public business, but the public business for 
them." For their maintenance taxes are required amounting 
to no less than one-fifth of the total produce of the land, and 
one-nineteenth of its actual value. Much of it being exempt 
from taxation, the weight presses still more heavily on the 
small proprietors, most of whom pay to the government, in 
addition to their local taxes, no less than a third of the total 
product of land and labor. 

So far as regards intercourse wMth foreign nations, Sweden 
has followed the lead of Colbert, but she yet needs a Turgot 
for the removal of obstacles to commerce at home. 

§ 11. We have now studied the operations of six commu- 
nities, diflfering in race, habits, manners, and religion, and 



250 



CHAPTER XX. § 11. 



agreeing only in tlie adoption of a system tending to itiercnpe 
in the power of association, and in tlie development of the 
various faculties of their members ; and in the results thereby 
obtained. In all of them we see : — 

A steady increase in the p7'oportion of the labor of the 
community given to developing tlie powers of the land, and 
diminution in that required to be given to trade and trans- 
portation ; 

A great increase in the power to maintain commerce at 
home, with large increase in the value of land and the reward 
of labor ; 

A large increase in the power to maintain foreign com- 
merce ; 

A steady increase of population and wealth ; 

And a growing individuality, enabling them more and more 
to occupy an independent position among the various nations 
of the earth. 

Man seeks association with his fellow-man. To have asso- 
ciation, there must be diversity of employment and develop- 
ment of individuality. As these are obtained, and as the 
consumers and producers more and more take their places by 
each other's side, the prices of raw materials and of finished 
products steadily approach each other, with constant decline 
in the value of all, and increase in the wealth, the power, and 
the value, of man ; and with constant tendency to have society 
assume the form of greatest stability, that of a true pyramid, 
as here is shown : — 



Appropriation. 



Transportation. 



Conversion. 



Ae:riculture. 



Such is the tendency in all the countries that follow in the 
lead of France, and in France herself.* 



* The recent commercial treaty between France and England is 
commonly spoken of as a great free-trade measure, and yet the 
French tariff is, at this moment, more intelligently protective than 
that of these United States. 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 



251 



When, on the contraiy, they are not obtained, and when, 
consequently, the prices of raw materials and of finished pro- 
ducts recede from each other, the reverse is seen, society 
then assuming the form here exhibited : — 



1 

i 


Appropri.ation. 




1 


Transportation. 






Conversion. 








Agriculture. 





Such is the tendency in all the countries that follow in the 
lead of England, and in England herself. Instability is, there- 
fore, the characteristic of all those countries. 

American policy has been in harmony with neither. While 
recognizing generally the expediency of protection, and the 
propriety of creating a domestic market for the planter's and 
the farmer's products, powerful parties have held that it was 
to be regarded, not as a measure of national policy promotive 
of the good of all, but as a special favor to certain classes 
whose interests were to be promoted at the cost of all ; and 
for that reason to be granted only so far as was consistent 
with the raising of the greatest public revenue. Instability 
has, therefore, been the especial characteristic of American 
policy, protection having been resorted to whenever the public 
treasury was empty, and abandoned whenever it had again 
been filled. As a consequence of this it is that we are now 
afibrded the opportunity of studying, on the same ground, the 
working of both the systems already examined in reference to 
80 many, so different, and so widely-scattered nations ; and 
to that examination it is proposed that we new address our- 
selves. 



253 CHAPTER XXI. § I. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

OB VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OF MATTER — CONTINUEl>. 

^ 1. The American Union a country of contrasts — its social system tending towards cen 
tralization and slavery, while its political one is based upon the idea of decentralization 
and freedom. Natural tendency towards association and combination. Counteracted 
by a national policy tending towards dispersion. , 

g 2. Early tendencies towards the adoption of the system which looked towards bringing 
together the producer and the consumer. Variable character of American policy since 
the close of the great European war. 

g 3. Policy of Colbert and Cromwell adopted in regard to shipping. Freedom of trade 
obtained by means of protective measures. 

§ 4. American policy, generally, in full accordance with the doctrines of the British school. 
Consequent decline in the prices of the rude products of the farm. The man who mvst 
go to any market, must pay the tax of transportation. Heavy taxation of American 
farmers. 

I 5. Civilization grows in the direct ratio of the removal of obstacles standing betsveen the 
producers and the consumers. 

g 6. The planter steadily giving more of his raw materials, and receiving less in exchange 
for them. Consequent exhaustion of the soil, and weakness of the State. 

§ 7. Barbarism grows, everywhere, in the direct ratio of the export of the rude products 
of the soil, and consequent decline in the pow.ers of the land. 

§ 1. France, as has been shown, is a countiy of " contrasts," 
resulting from the fact that its social and political systems are 
not in harmony with each other, the former tending regularly 
towards increase in the value of land and of man, the creat'on 
of local centres, and the establishment of freedom ; the latter 
as certainly towards decrease in the value of land, centraliza- 
tion of wealth and power in the capital, and reduction of men 
to the condition of mere machines, to be used by men whose 
trade is politics. 

In the American Union, too, we find "contrasts," whose 
existence is due to the fact, that it has a social system which 
looks towards centralization and slavery, standing in the 
presence of a political one based on the idea of local activity 
and perfect self-government. In France, a sound social sys- 
tem is slowly, but certainly, correcting the errors of the 
political one, with constant tendency towards increase of 
freedom ; whereas, in these United States, social error is 
gradually triumphing over political truth, with growing ten- 
dency toward the further dispersion of man, the absorption 
of local centres of action, the centralization of power in great 
cities, and the increasing subjection of those who labor to 
the will of those who live by the exercise of their powers of 
appropriation. First among the nations of the earth to de- 



J 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 253 

clare that " all men are born equal," they no v stand alone 
among civilized communities in having among them teachers 
who assert that " free society has proved an utter failure ;" 
that "slavery, whether for the white man or the black, is a 
legitimate, useful, and expedient institution ;" and that it is 
a duty to strive "not merely to retain it where it is, but to 
extend it to regions where it is yet unknown.''* 

* The reader is here requested to bear in mind that the picture 
of the American Union now about to be presented is the one that 
was furnished by Mr. Carey several years prior to the breaking out 
of the pro-slavery rebellion in 18GU-6I. With the exception of the 
short period from 1842 to 1847 the country had been then for more 
tliau a quarter of a century wholly subjected to that system which 
looked towards having but a single workshop for the world — towards 
compelling all the raw materials of the world to travel thousands 
and tens of thousands of miles in search of the little spindle, the 
little loom, and other little and inexpensive machinery of con- 
version—and towards a constantly increasing subjection of the 
producers of the earth to the will of those who controlled and 
directed the machinery of exchange. In all other countries such 
subjection had been attended by constant increase in the tax of 
transportation, by decline in the powers of the land, and by dim- 
inution in the laborer's power to control his own actions, and it 
would have been fair to presume that the same results would cer- 
tainly here be realized. That they had then been so, was proved 
by the facts, that exhaustion of the soil had been constant in all 
those portions of the country in which employments had not been 
much diversified — that the dispersion of the American people had 
been greater than had ever before been known — that the tax of 
transportation had therefore borne a constantly increasing propor- 
tion to the selling prices of the farmer's and planter's products — 
that the laborer had become more and more a mere instrament in 
the trader's hands — that absenteeism had steadily grown- ^and that 
the tyrant Southern overseer had become more and more the master 
of both land and laborer. 

So far as regarded the nation at large, these results had then 
exhibited themselves in a constant increase of the Slave Power, and 
in a tendency towards disunion that has since culminated in a civil 
war the like of which has no existence in the annals of the world. 
Had the people of these United States followed the example of 
France instead of traveling in the direction indicated by English 
traders — had they steadily maintained that system of policy which 
tended towards bringing the consumer and the producer together, 
and towards increasing the diversity of their own pursuits — 
Northern and Southern land would both have grown in their money 
value as Southern laborers had been becoming more free, and Fed- 
eral power would have grown as local institutions had become more 
and more developed. To the fact that such a system was not main- 
tained, and to that alone, are we now indebted for the waste of life 
and property, and for the destruction of human happiness, that 
22 



25-4 CHAPTER XXI. § 1. 

In no part of the world does the political system, based as 
it is on tlie idea of local centres counteracting the great 
central attraction, so nearly correspond with that wonderfully 
beautiful one established for the regulation of the universe. 
In none, therefore, are the natural tendencies of man towards 
combination with his fellow-man so fully exhibited. The type 
of the system is seen in the " bee," or union of the older mem- 
bers of a settlement for the purpose of providing accommoda- 
tion for their newly arrived neighbors. The logs are to be 
rolled, the roof is to be raised, or the corn to be husked. 
Each of these operations would require severe exertion on 
the part of the lonely settler ; but all are rendered light by 
means of combination among those around him. The new- 
comer has, probably, neither horse nor plough ; one neighbor 
lends him the former, while another supplies the latter, and 
thus is he enabled soon to obtain both horse and plough of 
his own. A place of worship being required, all, whether 
Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Presbyterians, unite 
to build it; its pulpit to be occupied by the itinerant 
preachers of the wilderness. On one day we find them asso- 
ciating for the making of roads, and holding meetings to 
determine who shall superintend their construction and 
assess the taxes required for that purpose. On another, they 
meet to select persons to represent them at the county board, 
in the State Assembly, or in the Congress of the nation. 
Next they settle where the new school-house shall be built, 
who shall collect the funds required, or select the little library 
that is to aid their children in applying the knowledge 
acquired from their teachers. Again, they form associations 
for mutual insurance against fire ; or little savings' funds, 
called banks, at which the man who wishes to buy a plough 
may borrow the little money that he needs. Little mills grow 
up, and expand into large ones, in which the capitalists of the 
neighborhood, shoemakers and sempstresses, farmers and law- 
yers, widows and orphans, are interested ; little towns appear, 
in which every resident owns his own house and lot, and is 
therefore directly interested in the advancement of all, each 
feeling that the first of the objects needed to be attained is 

liave attended the three past years. That waste and that destruc- 
tion, great as they have heen, and the debt that has been created, 
large as it is, constitute but portions of the price that the country 
is now required to pay for the abandonment, in 1832, of the policy 
that had been instituted by the passage of the protective tarifl'a 
of 1824and3S28 



OF VITAL CHANGKS OF FORM. 255 

nn entire security in the enjoyment of the rights of person 
and of property. Tlie power to associate steadily increases, 
and with it the habit of combination, which is most seen 
where wealth and population most abound, in the New 
England States. There we see a network of association so 
far exceeding any thing elsewhere known, as to be entirely 
beyond comparison. Nevertheless, look to what quarter we 
may, we tind a state of things in striking "contrast" with all 
this, as will here be shown. 

The population of the Union is now (1856) 21 millions, 
and the surface comprised between the Mississippi and the 
Atlantic is 640,000,000 of acres, each of which could support 
a full-grown man ; yet are men flying to Kansas and Nebraska, 
Utah and Oregon, there to commence their lal)ors far from 
market and under circumstances the most disadvantageous. 

The natural tendency of man is to combine his labors with 
those of his fellow-men ; yet here, men fly from their fellows, 
wasting their labor on the road, and employing it unprofitably 
at their journey's end. 

His natural tendency is to combine his axe with his neigh- 
bor's spade, lending the one and borrowing the other ; yet 
here, the man who owns the axe flies from him who has the 
spade. 

His natural tendency is to commence on the thin soil of the 
hill-side, and to work down tow^ards the rich soil at its foot, 
gathering manure on the one to enrich the other; yet here, 
he flies from the rich soils near him to seek poor ones at a 
distance. 

His natural tendency is to combine with his neighbors to 
improve old roads ; yet here he flies to a distance and opens 
new ones, so that two are to be nuiintained instead of one. 

His natural tendency is to combine with his neighbors for 
improving the character of education in old schools ; but here, 
he flies to places where no schools exist. 

His natural tendency is to hold in regard old places and 
old houses, mellowed by time and sanctified by the recollec- 
tions of those who had before inhabited them ; but here, he 
flies from them to cut out new places in the woods, whose 
rudeness is enhanced 1)}^ the recollection of those he has left. 
Win/ is this so? Why do men fly from rich lands to seek 
poor ones in the West? Why, in rich countries with canals 
and railroads, towns and telegraphs, do(.'S population cease to 
grow, and land become from day to day more consolidated, 
always an evidence of declining civilization ? 



256 CHAPTER XXI. § 2. 

lieiause the policy of the country has opposed the develop' 
ment of commerce, while favoring the supremacy o/" trade, 
and compelling constant increase in the necessity for, and in 
the tax of, transportation. 

§ 2. The Revolutionarj War having originated in the 
determination of the colonists to release themselves from the 
system under which Ireland and the Indies have since been 
so entirely exhausted, it might have been expected that they 
w^ould follow in the direction indicated by Colbert, adopting 
measures to bring the consumer to the side of the producer, 
and thus relieving themselves from the most oppressive of all 
taxes, that of transportation. That such were the early ten- 
dencies of the government is shown in an elaborate Report 
of Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, one of the ablest economical papers ever written. 
Therein it is shown that "not only the wealth, but the 
independence and security, of a country appear to be materi- 
ally connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every 
nation," as he continues, " with a view to these great objects, 
ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials 
of national supply. These comprise the means of subsist- 
ence, clothing, and defence ; and, though it wei'e true 
that the immediate and certain effect of regulations con- 
trolling the competition of foreign with domestic fabrics was 
an increase of price, it is universally true that the contrary is 
the ultimate effect with ever}'" successful manufacture. When 
a domestic manufacture has attained to perfection, and has 
engaged in the prosecution of it a competent number of per- 
sons, it invariably becomes cheaper. Being free from the 
heavy charges which attend the importation of foreign com- 
modities, it can be afforded cheaper, and accordingly seldom 
or never fails to be sold cheaper, in process of time, than was 
the foreign article for which it is a substitute. The interiial 
competition which takes place soon does away every thing 
like monopoly, and by degrees reduces the price of the article 
to the minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital em- 
ployed." This accorded, as he thought, "with the reason of 
the thing, and with experience." 

The great war of Europe had then begun, and its effects 
came soon to be felt in the increased demand for food, fur- 
nishing the farmer with a temporary market and preventing 
him from reflecting on the fact, that the price of his land 
wholly depended on its subjection or exemption, from the tax 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 257 

jf transportation. Time, however, brought the correction 
of his delusions, in the form of Orders in Council, and Berliu 
and Milan Decrees, by which were annihilated the rights of 
neutral nations. The American flag being driven from the 
ocean, it became necessary, in self-defence, to prohibit inter- 
course with either of the belligerents. Pressing need of cloth 
and iron then compelled resort to domestic manufactures. 
It being, however, always the first step that is the most 
cosily and the least productive, the progress was necessarily 
slow, and the war of 1812 found the country so entirely un- 
provided, that the government was driven to the expedient 
of taking possession of Amelia Island, belonging to Spain, for 
tlie sole purpose of enabling its citizens to evade its own laws, 
by introducing cargoes of woollens whose i-egular importa- 
tion had been forbidden, but which had been collected 
there in anticipation of a repeal of the non-intercourse 
laws. 

That war produced effects similar to those witnessed in 
Continental Europe, causing the erection of furnaces and 
factories, and the opening of mines, and thus furnishing so 
extensive a market for food, that the price of flour was higher 
than it ever before had been, althougli the export trade had 
almost wholly ceased. With the return of peace and the 
re-establishment of free trade, however, manufactures disap- 
peared and manufacturers were ruined, and thus was lost to 
the nation all the skill and experience accumulated in the 
decade through which it then had passed. 

Commerce declined, labor ceased to be in demand, and land 
sold for one-third of the prices it had before commanded. 
Peace had brought with it ruin, and not prosperity. Uni- 
versal distress, however, led to the semi-protective tariff of 
1824, followed by the really protective one of 1828, by which 
the policy of Colbert and Hamilton was, for the first time, 
installed as that of the American Union. Threatened resist- 
ance on the part of the cotton-growing States, however, 
caused the abandonment of that policy before it had even five 
years trial, and in 1833 it was suspended Ijy the Compromise 
tariff, in virtue of which protection was gradually to be with- 
drawn, wholly ceasing in 1842. Before that time, however, 
commerce had died away, and poverty and ruin had taken the 
place of the prosperity that had before existed. Tlie neces- 
sity for a change of policy became once again obvious, ana 
protection was again in 1842 adopted as the law of the laud. 



258 CHAPTER XXI. § 3. 

Again, however, in 1846, the system was changed, and pro* 
tection was withdrawn. The gradual tendency towards its 
ultimate complete adoption then, however, exhibited itself in 
the fact that as the rate of duty to be raised was fixed as high 
as 30 per cent. 

The expediency of protection has, to a greater or less 
extent, been recognized in every tariff passed since the for- 
mation of the Federal Constitution, but it has only twice 
been made adequate to the attainment of the object — in the 
four years ending in 1833, and the four ending in 1846 — and 
in both cases the laws were repealed almost at the moment 
when they had begun to operate.* 

§ 3. Such is the history of these United States as regards 
protection to the farmer and planter in their eflPorts to draw 
the consumer to their side. When, however, we come to the 
question of the transportation of their products, we find a 
policy widely different. There, following the lead of Colbert 
and of Cromwell, the policy of the British Navigation Laws 
was adopted, and has been since steadily maintained. Hbrae- 
built shipping in the foreign trade was adequately protected, 
and in the domestic market foreign shipping was absolutely 
prohibited ; and the effect is seen in the establishment of a 
mercantile marine unequalled in the world. 

Nor has that been the sole result. The object of Crom- 
well's laws was that of giving to British ships advantages in 
the trade of Britain with the world at large, and thus exclud- 
ing other ships from competition even for the trade of their 
respective countries. The object of America was that of 
establishing equality of rights on the ocean, and in the ports 
of Britain. In this she fully succeeded ; and, her example 
being followed by Prussia, freedom of trade was thus con- 
quered by means of that same protection by which Germany 
and France are now acquiring for themselves freedom of 
domestic and foreign commerce. By both of those countries 
it is clearly seen that the nearer the market can be brought 
to the farmer, the higher must be the prices of labor and land, 
and the lower those of cloth and iron. 

§ 4. The average export prices, and the average exports, of 

* Since the above was written protection lias been again rein- 
stated by means of the Morrill Tariff of 18(J1. 



OF VITAL CIIAXGES OP FOUM. 259 

flour since the beginning of the present centurj', have been 
as follows : — 

Price. Exports. Price Exports. 

1810-15 11 60 uncertain 1841,45 $5 10 $16,000,1)00 

1821.25 ■ 6 20 $13,000,000 1846,60 5 44 39,000,000 

1826.30 6 20 12,000,000 1850 5 00 26,000.000 

1831,35 5 95 14.000,000 1851 4 73 22.000,000 

1836,40 8 00 12.500,000 1852 4 24 26,000,000* 

The facts here presented are worthy of most careful atten- 
tion. The highest average was from 1810 to 1815, at a time 
when foreign trade scarcely existed. The extent of the 
domestic market then created may be judged from the fact 
that the cotton manufacture, which in 1805 had required only 
1000 bales, absorbed in 1815 no less than 90,000. 

The policy of the country having changed with the return 
of peace, the price of flour declined, until it reached, in 1852, 
just before the Crimean War, a lower point than had been 
touched since the peace of 1783. Directly the reverse of this 
is what is seen in France, Russia, and all those other countries 

* The very trivial effect of short European crops upon American 
prices is clearly proved by the fact, that in the period of the 
great Irish famine, 184(j,50, the average price of flour was but 
one-third of a dollar higher than it had been in that from 1841 to 
1S45, in which the great ttnancial crisis had closed a large portion 
of the European workshops, and deprived those wlio had pre- 
viously worked in them of the means to purchase bread. It is 
further shown by the foUowins; figures, exhibiting the export of 
breadstuflfs to Europe, in the three past years, and the prices of 
flour at a period when short crops had rendered necessary a large 
import of food into nearly all of Eastern Europe : 

1860. 1S61. 1862. 

To Great Britain and Ireland $44,000.000 $.39.000.000 $47,000,000 

To France 2,300,000 12,700.000 720,000 

Prices of tlour $5 44 $5 00 SO 15 

Estimated in gold, the prices of the two latter years are less than 
was that of the first, and yet the needs of Europe for foreign food 
were then greater than they had ever before been known to be. 

Comparing now the recent prices, wlien gold so much abounded, 
witli those of the past, we see that the country obtained far less 
for a barrel of flour than it did in the period from 1830 to 184(1, 
when the existence of the gohl deposits of California and Australia 
remained yet untliought of — the farmers of the country having 
thus failed to profit in any manner by the remarkable auriferous 
discoveries of the period that had intervened. The cause of this 
is to be found in the fact, that the policy of the country had tendeil 
to render them daily more and more dependent upon the use of 
British ships and mills, and more and more the slaves of those 
who controled the machinery of trade and tran.sportation. 



260 CHAPTER XXI. § 4. 

which are engaged in bringing the market to the farmer, 
instead of placing the farmer under the necessity of going tc 
the market. In all such, the price of food has tended, and 
still does tend, steadily to rise. 

No truth is more susceptible of demonstration than this : 
that the man who must go to market pays the cost of getting 
there. It is one which sad experience teaches every farmer ; 
and one, too, that the student may find demonstrated by 
Adam Smith. The corn that is twenty or thirty miles distant 
from market sells for as many cents less per bushel than that 
which is at market ; and potatoes one hundred miles from 
market are almost worthless, while those raised close to it 
command a liberal price, the difference between the two being 
the cost of transportation. 

Another important truth is : That the price of the whole 
crop depends on that which can he obtained for the small 
surplus that must go abroad ; or which must be paid for the 
small quantity required to be brought from a distance. Give 
to any certain district 20,000 bushels of wheat more than are 
required, and the whole crop will fall to the level that can be 
obtained abroad for those few bushels. Let the same district 
in another year require as many additional bushels, and the 
whole will. rise to the price at which they can be "obtained 
from abroad — the difiference being perhaps as follows : — 

300.000 bushels at the medium price of $1 $300,000 

320,000 bushels at the lowest price. 75 cents 240,000 

The crop being small, and 20,000 being required, the price 

will rise tu $1 25, giving for 280,000 bushels 350,000 

The question here between a high and a low price, differ- 
ing to the extent of nearly one-half, depends altogether on 
the existence of a demand slightly below or above the quantity 
produced at home and needing to be sold. 

Looking now to the quantity exported, we see a growing 
necessity for resorting to a distant market, accompanied by a 
decline of 30 per cent, in prices ; but if we compare 1850-52 
with the period from 1810 to 1815, when the home con- 
sumption was equal to the whole supply, the reduction is no 
less than 63 per cent. Admitting, however, that the prices 
of the first of the above periods would, in the event of the crea- 
tion of a domestic market, be the standard, we obtain as the 
result, that the same crops which now sell for $1,500,000,000, 
would then command $2,200,000,000, making a difiference of 
$100,000,000. These prices are those at the port of ship- 
ment ; but were we to add to this the saving of inland trans- 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FtJtM. 261 

portation resulting from the creation of local markets, tl»e 
difference would reach §1000,000,000 — xchivh may be retjardcd 
as the actual price paid by the agricultural body for the priv- 
ilege of aimed giving away food to the extent of leas than 
$30,000,000. 

§ 5. It may be said, however, that the food consumers 
would suffer from the adoption of such a policy as would 
correct this waste. Directly the reverse, however, has been 
the case in all other countries. At no period of England's 
history has the condition of the people so much improved as 
in the thirty years preceding the wars of the French Revolu- 
tion, when the prices of ravy materials and of finished products 
were most steadily approximating. Circulation becoming 
from year to year more rapid, labor became more and more 
economized, with large increase of wealth. Land and man 
almost doubled in their money value ; and all because of the 
relief from the tax of transportation then resulting from the 
growth of domestic commerce. So, too, in France. For 
centuries the price of corn had not been so low as it was in 
the days of Louis XV. ; and yet, at none had the people so 
severely suffered from want of food. Commerce had then 
scarcely an existence. Since then the price has greatly in- 
creased, enabling the farmer to gain on both hands : first, by 
obtaining more money for his corn ; and second, by obtaining 
more cloth for his money. Farm wages rise, and with them 
those of every other department of labor, the former being 
the standard by which all others are regulated. 

As in England and France, so would it be in these United 
States. Labor being in demand its price would rise, and the 
greater would be the power of accumulation ; the more abun- 
dant would be the machinery applied to utilizing the forces 
of nature ; the larger would be the proportion of the mental 
and physical force of the community given to developing the 
resources of the earth ; and every step in that direction would 
furnish further evidence of the existence of a perfect harmony 
in the true and permanent interests of farmer and artisan, 
laborer and capitalist. 

The proposition, that civilization groics in the direct ratio 
of the removal of obstacles standing between the producer and 
the consumer, and the consequent approximation of the prices 
of the products of the earth in tluir rude and their fnished 
forms, is a gieat and universal law, to which no exception 
can be found. Thus fur, as we have seen, the policy of the 



•2G2 CHAPTER XXI. § 6. 

Union has tended steadily towards lessening tbe price of 
food ; and as this tends inevitably towards barbarism, it is 
here we must look for an explanation of the extraordinary 
contrasts above referred to. 

§ 6. Looking now to the other great staple of America, cot- 
ton, we find the crop of 1814 to have been 70,000,000 pounds, 
of which the domestic consumption was nearly 30,000,000. 
The crop increasing while the manufacture declined, there 
arose an increased necessity for pressing it on foreign mar- 
kets, with the result that is here exhibited : 

Export 1815 and 1816 average 80,000,000 price $20,500,000 

" 1821 and 1822 " 134.000,000 " 21,500,j00 

" 1827 to 1829 " 256,000,000 " 26,000,000 

The quantity had now more than trebled, while the receipt 
had. increased little more than 25 per cent. The prices here 
given being those of the shipping ports, and the quantity to 
be transported having so greatly increased, and having re- 
quired so great an extension of cultivation, it is, we think, 
reasonable to assume that the planter gave 256,000,000 of 
pounds for no more money than six years previously he had 
received for one-third of that quantity. 

1830 to 1832 average 280,000,000 $28,000,000 

ISiO " 1842 " 619,0(10,1100 55,000,000 

1843 " 1845 " 719,000,000 Sl.OOO.OnO 

1S49 " 1,020,000,000 66,000,000 

We have here nearly 940,000,000 of pounds to be trans- 
ported, additional to the quantity of 1815-16, and from an 
area that, because of the unceasing exhaustion of tiie soil, 
had been enormously extended.* Such being the case, it 
may be doubted whether the price I'cceived by the planter 

* The following paragraph is from a speech of a distinguished 
citizen of Alabama, and exhibits the action of the system in a State 
that but forty years since had no existence : — 

" I can show yoa, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, 
and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the art- 
less and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after 
taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by rest, 
manure, or otherwise, are going further west and south in search 
of other virgin lands which they may and will despoil and im- 
poverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater 
means and no more skill, are buyiujy out their poorer neighbors, 
extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The 
wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give 
their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who 
are merely independent. Of the $20,000,000 annually realized from 



OF VITAL ClIANGFS OF FORM. 263 

was more than twice as great as had been receiv^ed for 
80,000,000. 

1850-1851 pounds 781,000,000. $92,000,000 

The great fact is here presented to us that the less cotton 
the planter sends to market, the more he obtains for it, while 
saving largely of the cost of internal transportation. 

1S52 pounds 1,093,000,000 $SS,00(i.O00 

n«re is an increase of 312,000,000 of pounds requiring to 
be transported, accompanied with a diminution of gross 
receipt of $4,000,000 ; and of net receipt that cannot be esti- 
mated at less than §10,000,000. As compared with 1815-16 
the planler mud have been giving five pounds for the price 
before received for one. 

Such a course of things is without a parallel in the world. 
In the natural order of things the cultivator profits by im- 
provements in manufacture ; yet here, although each succes- 
sive year had brought with it increased facilities for the 
conversion of cotton, we find the planter to have been 
steadily giving more of it for less money. The cause, as 
we are told, is, that too much cotton is produced, and the 
planters hold meetings with a view to reduce the quantity ; 
yet still the cultivation extends, with constant decline of 
price. Struggle as they may, the case is still the same, 
they being required from year to year to give more cotton 
for less money, and that in spite of a great natural law in 
virtue of v»'hich he should have more money for less cotton.* 

tlie sale of the cotton crop in Alabama, nearly all not expended in 
supporting the producers is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus 
the -vviiite popul.^tion lias decreased, and the slave increased almost 
pari passu, in several counties of our State. In 1S25 Madison county 
cast about 300u votes ; now, she cannot exceed 2300. In traversing 
that county one will discover numerous farm-honses, once the 
abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by 
slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated; he will observe 
fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with 
those evil harbingers, foxtail and broomsedge ; he will see the 
moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages ; and 
will find 'one only master grasps the whole domain that once fur- 
nished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country 
in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had been 
felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful 
signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas." 
— C. C. Clay. 

* During the whole of the period above referred to, the Britisl^ 
people were steadily engaged in stimulating the competition of 



264 CHAPTER XXI. § t. 

§ 1. We are thus presented with the remarkable fact that 
the two chief products of the Union have been, under the free 
trade system, steadily declining in their power to command 
the precious metals in exchange. 

The larger the price of corn the greater must be the power 
of the farmer to purchase cloth, and the higher the price 
the planter will obtain for his cotton. The tendency of 
American policy, however, is towards reducing the price of 
corn throughout the world, and as a necessary consequence, 
towards destroying the power of the people of France and 
Germany, Russia and Austria, England and Ireland, to pur- 
chase cloth. Were it possible now to say that no more food 
should go hence to any part of the world, the Europeaa 
market would be relieved from the pressure by which it is 
kept down, the prices of food would rapidly advance, afford- 
ing inducement to the extension of cultivation and causing 
a demand for labor, with large increase of wages, and conse- 
quent increase in the power to purchase cloth. Agricultural 
wages would rise in price, rendering indispensable an increase 
in the wages of factory labor. 

Such, too, would be the home effect of protection fully 
adopted and permanently maintained. The measures required 
for making a domestic market for food, and for thus relieving 
the farmers of Europe from American competition, would 
produce rapid domestic circulation, and the American farmer 
would soon obtain as much for his corn as now is paid in 
France or England. Agricultural labor would rise in price, 
followed by rise in that which was otherwise employed ; 
and at the close of a few years the domestic consumption of 

India witli America for permission to pass their cotton through the 
very narrow passage offered by British ships and mills, and with 
every step in that direction there was increase of friction, decline 
In the rapidity of movement, increase of profit to the owners of 
machinery of trade and transportation, and diminution of price to 
the producer. The latter were assured that any rise of price would 
stop consumption, and with a view to prove that such must neces- 
sarily be the case, the mill-owner diminished his working hours, 
with a view to increase the "stock on hand," and thus to check 
the tendency towards rise of price. Happily, the events of the 
three past years have furnished evidence that low prices are not 
needed for producing large consumption. What it is that really is 
required, is rapidity of circulation resulting from closer proximity 
of producers and consumers. Had the planter twenty years since 
followed the advice of Adam Smith, in combining his food and wool 
in the form of cloth, his people would have been becoming from 
day to day more free, his land would have been steadily acquiring 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 265 

cotton would be thrice as great as now, enabling the planter 
to receive for large crops a higher price per pound than he 
now receives for it when crops are small. 

Adam Smith denounced the British system of his day, 
because it was based on the idea of cheapening the raw 
materials of manufacture. That of the present day looks to 
the same results ; and therefore is it that it has been resisted 
by all the civilized nations of the world — America alone 
ex<;epted. In all of them, consequently, raw produce rises 
in price ; while here alone is found a civilized community 
in which raw produce has during half a century steadily 
declined in price — the farming and planting interests, strange 
to say, having been most consistent in the pursuit of a 
policy tending to diminish the quantity of money to be 
received in exchange for a bale of f^otton or a baiTel of flour. 

The histor}^ of the Union for the last forty years is an 
enigma of which the solution is found in the following propo- 
sition : — Barbarism grows in the ratio of the export of the 
rude products of the land, and the consequent exhaustion of 
the soil — the raising of such products for distant markets 
being the proper work of the barbarian and the slave, and of 
them alone. 

a larger money value, and his succes.sors would be now enjoying a 
degree of prosperity equal to any thing the world had ever known. 
To this fact that the planters of the past did not do this those of the 
present stand indebted for the ruin they now experience. The 
greater the variety of pursuits, the greater must ever be the ten- 
dency towards union, peace, happiness, wealth, and strength. 
23 



266 CHAPTER XXII. § 1. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

OF VITAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OF MATTER- — CONTINUED. 

2 1. Wealth consists in the power to command the services of natnre. Great increiise of 
Biitish wealth, resulting from the command of steam. Extraordinary anionnt of un- 
developed power in the United States. Combination of action required for its develop- 
ment. National policy adverse to association and comhinatioa 
g 2. Waste of power resulting from the exhaustion of the soil, and consequent dispersion 

of men. Gradual consolidation of the land. 
J 3. Trader's power steadily increases, while that of the farmer and planter as steadily 
declines. Consequent instability and irregularity of the societary movement. Trader 
profits by instability. Remarkable steadiness and regularity of the societary movement 
in all those periods in which the protective policy has been maintained. 
J i. Growing commerce enables the farmer to pass from the cultivation of the poorer to 
the richer soils. American policy restricts him to the former. Growing commerce 
tends to increase the power of labor over capital. American policy gives to capital 
greater power over labor. Growing commerce tends towards peace, and an economical 
administration of the affairs of government. American policy looks to extension of the 
trader's power at the expense of commerce. Increasing tendency towards war and 
waste. Growing commerce tends towards development of the latent powers of earth 
and man. American policy tends towards exhaustion of the one and enslavement of 
the other. 
§ 5. Speculative and gambling spirit engendered by a growing dependence upon the 
trader and transporter. Decline in the feeling of responsibility resulting from irregu- 
larity in the societary movement. Political and judicial corruption resulting from the 
growth of centralization. 
§ 6. The higher the societary organization the more rapid is the movement and the more 
instant the exhibition of the effects of a sound, or unsound, course of policy. JFiequency 
and rapidity of changes in these United States. 
§ 7. Phenomena of declining civilization now (1856) exhibited throughout the Union. 
^ 8. Human progress manifests itself in decline in the trader's power, and the attendant 
creation of a scientific agriculture. Opposite tendency of the American policy, and 
consequent decline of civilization. 
? 9. As agriculture becomes a science the land becomes more productive, and its products 
tend to rise in price Consequent double profit to the farmer. As raw materials rise in 
price finished products fall, with further profit to the farmer. Man and laud at ono 
end of the scale of prices, and the most highly finished products at the other. The 
more rapid the societary circulation, the greater is their tendency towards approxima- 
tion. Agricultural improvement waits upon, and never precedes, industrial develop- 
ment. 
^ 10. As raw n^aterials and finished products approximate in price, commerce grows, with 
constant increase in the steadiness of the societary movement. As they become more 
widely separated, trade acquires power, and the movement becomes, from year to year, 
more fitful and ii-regular. With the one, the real MAJf becomes daily more developed. 
With the other, man becomes from day to day more thoroughly enslaved. 

§ 1. Civilization g;rows with the growth of wealth. 
Wealth itself consists in the ability to command the always 
gratuitous services of nature. The power of steam employed 
in Britain is equal to the united forces of 600,000,000 of men, 
and yet the number of persons employed in British coal 
mines but little exceeds 100,000. Her entire population 
being but little more than 20,000,000, it follows that, were 
the power equally divided, each individual would have the 
equivalent of nearly thirty willing sla"es, employed in doing 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 267 

his work ; slaves, too, requiriiifr neither lodg-injr, food, nor 
raunent. Such is the wonderful effect of combination in in- 
creasing human force. 

Of all the communities of the world, no one has within its 
reach so great an amount of material force as have these 
United States. Their soil, enriched through ages, is a great 
reservoir of wealth, requiring for its development only the 
magic power of association. Nevertheless, there is in no 
country so great a volunlary waste of both material and 
mental force. In Ireland and India, Turkey and Portugal, 
similar waste takes place, but in none of these is there even 
a pretence that the people direct their own course of action. 
Here, the reverse is the case, every man being supposed to 
constitute a part of the government, and to aid in directing 
its action so as to enable him and his neighbors to profit most 
by the gifts of Providence ; yet here it is that men are most 
disposed to exhaust the soil and thus compel themselves to 
fly apart from each other, thereby depriving themselves ot 
the power to substitute the great natural forces for the 
unaided strength of the human arm. 

§ 2. To enable men to come nearer together the land 
must have returned to it the refuse of its products. Of all 
the raw material required for human purposes manure is the 
most important, and yet of all it is the one that is least sus- 
ceptible of being carried to a distance. The waste of fertiliz- 
ing matter in our cities is so great as to be almost beyond 
calculation. The city of New York and its vicinity, alone, 
calculated at only two cents a day for each per.son, and 
making but a small allowance for the animals, would amount 
to $10,000,000 per annum. The potash and phosphoric acid 
contained in the corn and wheat crops of 1850 were estimated 
at nearly $30,000,000 ; nearly all of which was lost. Add to 
this the large export of breadstuffs, of ashes, and of the bones 
of cattle, and "it would be improper," says a distinguished 
agriculturist, "to estimate the annual waste of the country 
at less than an amount equal to the mineral constituents of 
1,500,000,000 bushels of corn/" This was said ten years 
since. Such an estimate now made would carry the figures 
up to 2,000,000,000 of bushels. 

Such being the facts, it is no cause for surprise that every 
intelligent foreigner is forced to remark on the low condition 
of American agriculture generally, and on the steady dim- 
inution of the powers of the soil. In New York, the average 



208 CHAPTER XXII. § 3. 

product of wheat is but half of what it was estimated at 
80 years since. In Ohio it is but eleven bushels to the acre, 
and in Virginia less than seven. Tobacco has been raised in 
the Border States until the land has been utterly exhausted ; 
while throughout the cotton growing country there is exhib- 
ited a scene of destruction unparalleled in the world to have 
been accomplished in so brief a period. The people there 
are living on their capital, selling their soil at prices so low 
that they do not obtain one dollar for every five destroyed ; 
and hence it has been that the laborer has been becoming 
more and more enslaved. As the power of the land declines, 
it becomes more and more consolidated in the lands of large 
proprietors who grow poorer from year to year. All this, 
we are sometimes told, is a natural consequence of the fact, 
that slavery is not adapted to the operations of scientific 
agriculture ; but here, as usual, modern political economy 
puts effect in the place of cause — the continued existence of 
slavery being a consequence of the absence of that combination 
which is needed for the advancement of agriculture. 

§ 3. The trader profits of changes in the prices of his com- 
modities. He desires to buy cheaply and sell dearly ; and 
the more frequent the vicissitudes of trade, the more numerous 
are his chances for accumulating fortune. The farmer, the 
planter, and the miner, on the contrary, desire steadiness, 
needing, as they do, to make their arrangements for years 
ahead. The cotton mill requires much time for its construc- 
tion, and for the collection and organization of the people 
who are therein to work. The preparation of the mine, the 
furnace, and the rolling-mill, requires long periods of exertion 
and large expenditure before their owners can begin to reap 
reward. The trader, on the contrary, buys and sells from 
hour to hour; and the greater his power to produce changes 
in the prices of wheat, cloth, and iron, the greater is the 
probability that he will ultimately enter upon the possession 
of the land of the farmer, the mill of the cloth manufacturer, 
the furnace of the maker of railroad bars, or the road of the 
man who has invested his fortune in a great improvement — 
and at half the cost at which this machinery has been con- 
structed. Trade and commerce thus look always in opposite 
directions, the one desiring and producing frequent and rapid 
changes, the other seeking and promoting regularity of 
movement. 

Steadiness is an essential characteristic of civilization ; 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 20'.) 

vnsteadinesa, of barbarism. In savage life tlicre is no 
itubility, man being there the slave of nature. With growing' 
wealth he becomes her master, and society then assumes a 
regular form, the movements of each day being distinguished 
from those of the one preceding only by a steady and gentle 
increase in the rapidity of exchanges. This is advancing 
civilization. The reverse is seen in all countries of advancing 
l)arbarism, crisis following crisis, each more severe than the 
last, until the societary machine falls to pieces, and chaos 
once more reigns. Tried by this standard, the American 
Union tends towards barbarism, the crisis of 1842, which 
preceded the tariff of that year, having been more fearful than 
tiiat of 1821, which prepared the way for the tariff of 1824; 
and that now (1856) in preparation being likely as far to 
surpass that of 1842, in severity, as mat had exceeded the 
one by which it had been preceded.* 

§ 4. Commerce enables the farmer to reclaim the rich soils. 
Growing supremacy of trade drives men to the poorer ones. 

Commerce tends to elevate the laborer and the small capi- 
talist towards the level of the great one. Growth of power 
in the trader tends to sink the small capitalist to a level with 
the day laborer. 

Commerce gives to the labors of the present increased 
power over the accumulations of the past. The growing 
power of trade produces the reverse effect, raising the rate of 
interest, and destroying the power to obtain reward for 
labor. 

Commerce creates local centres, thus relieving the farmer 
from the tax of transportation, and enabling him to vary his 
cultivation. Trade, by crushing local centres, compels the 
farmer to confine himself to those products that will bear 
transportation to the distant city, while compelling him to 
constant exhaustion of the soil. 

Commerce promotes the development of the treasures of 
the earth, and enables men to live nearer to one another. 
Growing supremacy of trade travels hand in hand with the 
increasing dispersion of men. 

Commerce, making no w^ars, looks to peace, wealth, and 

* In a note of Mr. Carey, written in 1858, he here informs Lis 
readers, that the above sketch of the movements of the American 
Union was written in ISiJi!, in the midst of a glare of fancied pros- 
perity. siTcli as never before had been known, and whicli f roved to 
be but f.he Iierald of the terrible crisis of 1857. 



270 CHAPTER XXII. § 4. 

happiness. Trade, always dispersive and warlike, thirsts fc 
the acquisition of Cuba and Central America, sends fleets to 
Japan, and fits out filibustering expeditions, thus seeking out- 
lets for population abroad while closing the markets for labor 
at home. 

Commerce enriches the people while producing economy 
in the administration of government. Increase of the trader's 
power tends to impoverish the people, while enriching those 
connected with the expenditure of public revenue. Thirty 
years since, $10,000,000 supplied all the means required. 
Ten years later, under the system of dispersion and exhaus- 
tion, the expenditure was quadrupled. Commerce being 
reinstated in the direction of affairs, the amount was reduced 
one-third. Trade, however, again obtaining the direction of 
affairs, the expenditure grew to $60,000,000. Moving steadily 
forward in the same false direction, the country has since 
reached a state of war which makes now (1864) an annual 
demand for $600,000,000. 

Commerce diminishes the necessity for the transporter's 
services, and lessens his power. Trade tends to make of 
him the master of men who drive the plough and swing 
the flail. 

Commerce opens mines and builds furnaces, and thus 
creates the power to make local roads. Trade destroys the 
power to support them when they have been made, but it 
creates great thoroughfares, whose management is so directed 
as to tax the local commerce for the support of that with 
distant people. 

Commerce looks homeward, promoting domestic inter- 
course by means of the improvement of rivers, the construc- 
tion of harbors, and the opening of mines. Trade, looking 
outward, measures the prosperity of a country by the extent 
of its intercourse with people who are distant, and with 
whom exchanges can be but few in number. 

Commerce tends to increase the power of self-government, 
lessening the dependence on foreign markets, while increasing 
the power to go to them. Trade increases the necessities of 
man while diminishing his powers. General comfort, happi- 
ness, and prosperity, follow in the train of the one, while 
poverty and over-population are the invariable attendants of 
increase in the power of the other. 

Commerce tends to produce harmony among men. Five- 
and^twenty years since, the stranger was always welcomed, 
but with the abandonment of the protective policy in 1833, 



OF VITAL CIIAXOES OF FORM. 271 

there was for the 6rst time exhibited that feeling of jealousy 
which was indicated by the creation of a ])olitical party 
having for its object the exclusion of foreigners from the 
rights of citizenship. With the re-establishment of that 
policy the demand for labor grew, and the party died away, 
to spring again into existence on a larger scale under the 
free trade system of 1846. Look where we may, we see 
discord following in the trader's wake. 

§ 5. With the growth of commerce the necessity for trans- 
porting commodities declines with diminution in the risks 
from the dangers of the sea, while stone and iron take the 
place of wood, and risks from fire diminish. In no civilized 
country do fires so much abound as in these United States, 
and in none is so large an amount required to pay for the 
loss that thence results. That the proportion increases is 
evident from the fact that the rates of insurance steadily 
rise, whereas they should as steadily decline. The loss result- 
ing from the waste of property and labor thus produced, is 
more than the total value of the merchatidize received in the 
Union from every quarter of the world ; and yet it is with 
a view to foster the distant trade that the country pursues 
a policy which forbids the development of the mineral and 
metallic riches that so much abound, and by means of wliich 
structures could be luiilt of materials that would almost set 
at defiance the risk of fiiie. 

Neither is it here alone that the wasteful effects of the 
system may be seen. The necessity for I'oads grows with 
the dispersion of the population, while the power to make 
them diminishes as men are forced to fly apart from each 
other. The country is therefore covered with half-finished 
roads, requiring unceasing and large repairs. So, too, with 
the steamboats of the Western rivers, constructed of inflam- 
mable materials, where otherwise they would be made of iron, 
the ores of which abound to an extent elsewhere unknown. 
Property and life are wasted, and reckless habits are every- 
where generated as the feeling of responsibility declines, and 
tliat decline is in the direct ratio of the dispersion of popu- 
lation. 

As the domestic commerce declines, steadiness diminishes 
and a reckless and gambling spirit appears, speculation taking 
the place of honest labor. Never in the history of the United 
States did this spirit so little show itself, as in those periods 
of quiet prosperity which followed establishment of the pro 



212 CHAPTER XXII. § 6. 

tective system by the Acts of 1828 and 1842. Never before 
bad it been so rife as in the period which followed the repeal 
of the tirst of these Acts in 1833; yet even that is now (1856) 
exceeded, the whole country having become one great gam- 
ing house, in which men of every degree are stocking the 
cards with a view to plunder of their neighbors. The crime 
that so abounded in that period is now thrice exceeded — rob- 
bery, riot, swindling, arson, and murder, having become so 
common as scarcely to attract the attention of the readers of 
the journals in which they are recorded. 

" The ruin or prosperity of a State," says Junius, " depends 
so much on the administration of the government, that to be 
acquainted with the merit of a ministry we need only observe 
the condition of the people. If we see them obedient to the 
laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and res- 
pected abroad, we may reasonably presume that their affairs 
are conducted by men of experience, ability and virtue. If, 
on the contrary, we see a universal spirit of distrust and dis- 
satisfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts 
of the empire, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign 
powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the 
government of that country is weak, distracted, and corrupt." 

The first of the pictures here presented exhibits the state 
of the American Union at the close of the war in 1815 ; again 
in 1834, at the date of the repeal of the protective tariff of 
1828 ; and again in 184T, when the highly protective Act of 
1842 had just ceased to be the law of the land. The second 
IS found on an examination of the condition of the country in 
the period from 1818 to 1824, when protection had ceased, 
and when the legislatures of numerous States had found 
themselves compelled to stay the action of the laws for the 
collection of debts ; in 1841-2, when "stay laws" were again 
resorted to, and when the Federal government was nearly 
bankrupt; and, lastly, at the present period, (1856,) when 
there reigns " a universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfac- 
tion ;" when there are "dissensions in every part of the empire;" 
when slavery and free trade grow in strength together; and 
when the "respect of other powers" has ceased to exist. 

§ 6. The more perfect the form of the ship, the more rapid 
will be her passage, under proper guidance, to her destined 
port ; but the more rapid, also, will be her destruction should 
the pilot run her on the shoals. So it is with nations. The 
higher their organization, the more rapid is the societary 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF lORM. 27 3 

movemcn*, and the more instant the shock tliat attends a 
stoppajre in the circulation. The passage of an invading 
army through Peru or Mexico produces little effect beyond 
a small destruction of life and property ; but in England it 
would cause the closing of factories, the stoppage of mills 
and furnaces, the dispersion of the people, and the suspension 
of all the machinery of local government. The power of 
recuperation, however, exists in the same degree, and the 
recovery from the effects of war in countries like France and 
England is much more rapid than it can be in countries of 
languid circulation. 

In none, however, are the effects of change so speedily felt 
as in these United States ; because, the political organization 
being more natural, the rapidity of circulation tends to be so 
very great. Universal instruction throughout the northern 
portion of the Union tends to produce great mental activity ; 
and whatever may be the direction in which the Ship of State 
is guided, the movement is there most rapid. Such being 
the case, it is easy to account for those extraordinary changes, 
those sudden transitions from adversity to prosperity, from 
solvency to bankruptcy, that so much surprise the people of 
other lands. 

§ T. He would have been regarded as a false prophet who, 
ten years since, (in 1840,) should have predicted — 

That, at the close of a single decade, the regular expendi- 
ture of the Federal government, in a time of peace, would 
reach sixty millions of dollars, or five times as much as it had 
been thirty years before : 

That the recipients of this large amount, whether contrac- 
tors, clerks, or poscmasters, would be held liable for the pay- 
ment of a forma! and regular assessment, to be applied to the 
maintenance iii office of the men by whom they had been 
appointed, or by whom the contracts had been made : 

That payment of these assessments would be made the 
condition upon which their own continuance in office should 
depend : 

That, coincident with these demands upon the employes 
of the government, all salaries would be largely raised ; and 
that thus the treasury would be largely taxed for purely party 
purposes, and for the promotion of private interests : 

That centralization would have become so far perfected 
as to enable those in office to dictate to a body of officials, 
sixty or eighty thousand in number, all their modes of thought 
in reference to public questions : 



274 CHAPTER XXII. § 1. 

That a constantly growing difficulty of obtaining the 
means of support, and constant increase in the rewards of 
public ser\'ice, would be attended with corresponding increase 
in the number of claimants for offices and in their subser- 
vience to those at whose pleasure offices were held : 

That the Executive authority would dictate to the mem- 
bers of the legislature what should be their course, and 
publicly advertise the offices that were to be given to those 
whose votes should be in accordance with its desires: 

That the growing mental slavery thus indicated would be 
attended by corresponding growth in the belief that "one of 
the chief bulwarks of our institutions" was to be found in the 
physical enslavement of the laborer : 

That the extension of the area of human slavery would 
have become the primary object of the government, and that 
with that view the great Ordinance of 1787, as carried out in 
the Missouri Compromise, would have been repealed : 

That, for the attainment of this object, the treaties with the 
poor remnant of the native tribes would have all been 
violated : 

That, with the same end in view, wars would be made, 
piracy encouraged, and territories purchased : 

That the Executive power would have so far grown, as to 
enable those charged with the administration of the govern- 
ment to adopt measures provocative of war, with a view to 
the spoliation of weaker neighbors : 

That it would have been officially declared that might made 
right, and that, if a neighboring power refused to sell the 
territory desired, the Union would then be justified in taking 
possession of it : 

That the re-opening of the slave trade would be publicly 
advocated, and that the first step towards its accomplishment 
would have been taken b}^ a citizen of the United States, in 
rescinding all the prohibitions of the Central American gov- 
ernment : 

That the substitution, throughout all the minor employ- 
ments of society, of slave labor for that of the freeman, would 
be publicly recommended by the Executive of a leading State 
of the Union : 

That, while thus acquiring territory in the South, the rights 
and interests of the people would be bartered away, for the 
sole purpose of preventing annexation in the North : 

That it would have been declared, that the free navigation 
of the South-American rivers must be obtained, "amicably, 
jf it could, forcibly, if it must :" 



OF VITAL CHANGES OF FORM. 275 

That the effect of these measures would have been the 
entire alienation of the other communities of the Western 
world : 

That the legislation of the country would have fallen almost 
entirely under the control of navigation, railroad, and other 
transportation companies, and that legislators would largely 
partake with their managers in the profits of enormous grants 
of money and of public lands : 

That cejitralization would so far have grown as to cause 
the expenditure of a single city to become nearly equal to 
that of the Federal government thirty years since : 

That the expenditure of city revenues, and the maintenance 
of public order, would have fallen into the hands of magis- 
trates, many of whom would be regarded as worthy only of 
the penitentiary : 

That the contest for the distribution of those revenues 
would have become so fierce as to cause the purchase of votes 
to an extent, and at a price, before unknown ; and that elec- 
tions would be carried on by means of bowie-knives, pistols, 
and even cannon : 

That Lynch law would have found its way into the Senate 
Chamber : that it would have superseded the provisions of 
the Constitution throughout the Southern States : that it 
would have wholly superseded the civil authority in one of 
the States of the Union : that the right of the States to pro- 
hibit slavery within their limits would have become so 
seriously questioned as to warrant the belief that the day was 
at hand when it would be altogether denied : that the doctrine 
of constructive treason would have been adopted in the Fed- 
eral courts : and that the rights of the citizen would thus 
have become equally imperilled by the extension of legal 
authority on the one hand, and the substitution of the law of 
force on the other : 

That polygamy and slavery would have gone hand in hand 
with the extension of the trader's power, and that the doctrine 
of a plurality of wives would be publicly proclaimed by men 
holding highly important offices under the Federal gov- 
ernment : 

That religious discord would so far have grown, that the 
question of the private opinions of a candidate for the presi- 
dency, in regard to matters of religious faith, would be dis- 
cussed throughout the Union : and finally, 

That the discord between the Northern and Southern por- 
tions of the Union would have nearly reached the point of 



216 



CHAPTER XXII. § 8. 



civil war, attended with growing disposition to look com- 
pliicently upon the idea of dissolution of the connection. 

This is a gloomy picture, but it is a true one. Not one of 
these things would have been deemed possible ten years ago, 
yet they are, one and all, now matters of history.* 

§ 8. The form of society in barbaric ages may thus be 
represented : — 





Trade and War. 




Mannfactur es. 






Agriculture. 







Instability is, of course, its essential characteristic. 

With the increase of numbers, and the growth of the power 
of association, it assumes the form of highest stability, as is 
here shown : — 



Trade and War. 



Manufactures. 



Agriculture. 



Throughout the British Empire and in this Union, the 
tendency is towards the former ; and that because the policy 
pursued gives to trade the mastery over domestic commerce. 
We are thus presented with the remarkable fact, that in those 
countries which have been hitherto regarded as the especial 
friends to freedom, there exists a growing tendency towards 
centralization and slavery ; and that in both we meet the 
phenomena that elsewhere have attended decline of civiliza- 

* This picture dates back to 1856, and it has been deemed well 
to preserve it here, as showing what were then the tendencies 
of the country under the free trade policy, and what was the prep- 
aration then being made for the rebellion of 1860, and the civil 
war which since has followed. At that time there had been already 
a speck of civil war in Kansas, and on the border of Missouri. 



OF VITAL CHANGES V¥ FORM. 211 

tion. In botli, the producer and conHunicr are receding from 
each other. In both there is a diminution in the power of 
assoeiation, and in the development of individuality. In 
both, the feeling of responsibility declines. In both, the 
power of progress diminishes from year to year. In both 
property in land tends to become more and more consolidated. 
In both, the accumulations of the past are obtaining increased 
control over the labors of the present. In both, the propor- 
tion of the population engaged in the work of production 
tends to decrease, and that engaged in transportation to 
increase. In both, stability and regularity diminish. In 
both, the trader acquires increased control over the legis- 
lative action. In the foreign policy of both, the end is 
held to sanctify the means. In both, there is an unceas- 
ing thirst for territory, to be acquired by any means, how- 
ever foul. In both, there is a steady growth of pauperism 
on the one hand, and of luxury on the other. In both, 
strength declines. Both are gradually losing the power 
to influence the movements of the world ; yet both imagine 
themselves to be increasing in strength and power. The 
greater the difficulties resulting from the existing system^ 
the more determined are both to find in it the road that 
leads to slavery, the route towards freedom. 

§ 9. The greater the improvement in agriculture, the 
greater is the tendency to a rise in the price of the commodi- 
ties produced ; and to a decline in the price of manufactured 
goods. 

The reader may, however, ask : Must not improved cul- 
tivation tend to cheapen corn, as improvements in the mode 
of conversion tend to cheapen cloth ? That such is the case 
is certain, the discovery of new manures, and the invention 
of more powerful instruments, having a tendency towards 
reducing the quantity of labor required, and lessening its 
price. Here, however, as everywhere, the harmony of in- 
terests is maintained by means of balancing attractions, this 
downward movement being more than counteracted by an 
upward and opposing force. 

Improvements in the mode of cultivation tend to raise the 
price of land, while depressing that of corn. Improved 
methods of grinding raise the price of corn while lowering 
that of flour. Improved culinary processes raise the price 
of flour while depressing that of bread. Improvement in the 
mode of converting food into iron, gold, lead, or any other 
24 



Sits CHAPTER XXII. § 10. 

of the commodities required by the food producers, tends to 
raise the price of bread while depressing that of the com- 
modities whose production is thus facilitated. At each and 
every stage of progress, the land approximates more nearly 
to the corn, the corn to the flour, the flour to the bread, and 
the bread to the iron — the ultimate effect of all these changes 
being an ever growing approximation of that first of all raw 
materials, the land, to the last and most remote of the finished 
commodities which the earth and its products can be made 
to yield. 

Man and land thus stand at one extremity of the scale, and 
the commodities of highest finish at the other, the former 
steadily increasing as the latter decline in value. The earth, 
as man's throne, thus rises with its sovereign, its services and 
those of all its parts descending, until they bow to his feet. 
His needs and his powers together constitute a constant 
quantity — growth in the latter being attended by steady 
diminution of the former. In other words, as wealth increases, 
value tends steadily to pass away. 

It may, however, be asked : Might not ameliorations of 
cultivation take place, unaccompanied by improvement in the 
conversion of its products ; and would they not, in that case, 
be attended by reduction in the prices of the raw material of 
human food ? Were that possible, such would certainly be 
the case. It is, however, no more possible, than it would be, 
that the attractive power of the sun should increase, leaving 
unaffected the motions of the various bodies by which he is 
attended in his course. Ayricultural improvement waits upon, 
and never precedes, industrial development — the application 
of new manures, the discovery of improved modes of apply- 
ing. power, and the invention of machines, being consequent 
upon that diversification of pursuits by means of which the 
various human faculties are stimulated into action, and men 
are fitted for that association with their fellow-men required 
for enabling them to direct the forces of nature to their service. 

§ 10. We thus arrive at the following conclusions : — 
That, with the development of agricultural science, conse- 
quent upon increased diversification of employment, the 
farmer obtains more from his land, while the prices of his 
products rise : 

That, simultaneously therewith, the prices of manufactured 
commodities tend to fall ; so that he not only has more corn 
to sell, but he obtains more in exchange for every bushel 
of corn : 



OF VITAL CriANOES OF FORM. 279 

That, at every step in this direction, commerce increases, 
with daily diminution in the power of the trader, and constant 
increase in the facility of association, in the development of 
individuality, in the feeling of responsibility, and in the 
})0\ver of further progress : 

That, on the other hand, as agriculture ceases to be a 
science the farmer obtains less from his land, while prices 
lend to fall: 

That, simultaneously thei'cwith, the prices of manufactured 
commodities tend to rise ; and that thus, the farmer obtains 
less in exchange for a bushel of corn, while having fewer 
bushels to sell : 

That every step in that direction is attended with decline 
of commerce, increase in the power of the trader, and constant 
decline in the facility of association, in the individuality of 
the people, in the feeling of responsibility, in the power of 
further progress, and in the freedom of man. 

Social science and the political economy of the schools are 
the precise antipodes of each other. Such being the case, it 
has been deemed necessary to study the phenomena presented 
by the various communities of ancient and modern times, 
with a view to show, that, while the facts of every country 
are in exact accordance with the doctrines that have been 
here propounded, all are eijually opposed to those which 
commonly are taught. One of these systems must be abso- 
lutely true, the other as absolutely false. On which side lies 
the truth the reader will decide for himself. 

Wo now proceed to the consideration of the. great inatru 
mrnt provided by the Creator for facilitating that process of 
combination without which the various human faculties must 
remain for ever undeveloped. 



2S0 CHAPTER XXIII. § I. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

OP THE INSTRUMENT OP ASSOCIATION. 

I.— 0/" Money and Price. 

\ 1. Difficulty, in the early periods of society, of making exchanges of service. Generw 
adoption of some certain commodity as a standard for tha comparison of valuea 
Recommendations, for this purpose, of the precious metals. 

g 2. Facility of association and combination resulting from the use of money. Of all the 
machinery in use among men it is the one which most economizes human effort. To 
the social body it is wliat atmospheric air is to the physical one — both supplying the 
machinery of circulation. 

g 3. Definition of price. Vrices of raw materials rise as we approach the centres of civil- 
ization, while those of finished commodities as regularly decline. Double loss to the 
farmer who is distant from market, resulting from the low prices of the one, and the 
high prices of the other. The more highly finished a commodity, the greater is its 
tendency to fall of price. 

g 4. Land and labor, the ultimate raw material of all commodities, rise in price as men 
are more enabled to associate, and combine their efforts. Money the great instrument 
furnished by Providence for facilitating association and combination. The more perfect 
the supply thereof, the greater is the tendency towards freedom. 

§ 1. The power of man over matter is limited to the 
effectuation of changes of place and of form. For the first, 
he needs wagons, ships, railroads ; for the second, spades, 
ploughs, mills, furnaces, steam-engines. To effect exchanges 
among themselves, and thus to combine their efforts, men 
seek to obtain the aid of some general medium of circulation. 
The machinery of exchange is, therefore, of three kinds : 
first, that required for producing changes of place ; second, 
for effecting changes of form ; and, lastly, for facilitating 
exchanges of service. 

In the early periods of society there is but little to ex- 
change ; and the few exchanges that are made are by direct 
barter skins being given for knives, clothing, fish, or meat. 
With the progress of population and wealth, however, all 
communities have gradually adopted some standard by means 
of which to measure the value of the commodities to be ex- 
changed. Cattle were so used by the early Greeks ; slaves 
and cattle by the Anglo-Saxons ; wampum by the Aborigines 
of America ; codfish by the people of New England ; and 
tobacco by those of Virginia. 

Such exchanges being inconvenient, we find man every- 
where seeking to remove the difficulty by adopting iron, 
copper, and bronze, preparatory to obtaining gold and silver, 
to be employed in aiding circulation. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 281 

Of all the substances of wliicli the earth is composed, the 
precious metals are those best fitted for that purpose. Scan- 
tily diffused throughout the globe, and requiring much labor 
for their collection, they represent a large amount of value. 
Being of small balk, the}" may readily be stored, or carried 
from place to place. Not being liable to rust, they can l)e 
preserved uninjured for any length of time, and their quantity 
is consequently less liable to variation than that of wheat or 
corn. Capable of the most minute sultdivision, they can be 
used for effecting the smallest as well as the largest ex- 
changes — those of a single cent, or those of hundreds of 
millions of dollars. 

To facilitate their use the various nations are accustomed 
to have them cut into small pieces and weighed, after v»'hich 
they are so stamped as to enable every one to discern how 
much is offered him in exchange for the commodity he has to 
sell ; but the value of the piece is but in a very slight degree 
due to this process of coinage. In the early periods of society 
all the metals passed in lumps, requiring to be weighed; 
and such is now the case with much of the gold that passes 
between the Western and Eastern continents. Gold dust has 
also to be weighed, and allowance made for impurities ; but 
with this exception its value before and after its passage 
through the Mint is almost precisely the same. 

§ 2. A proper supply of gold and silver having been 
obtained, and divided, weighed, and marked, the various mem- 
bers of society are now enabled to effect exchanges, even to 
purchasing for a single cent a share in the product of the 
labors of tens of thousands of men employed in making rail- 
roads, engines, and cars, and carrying upon them millions of 
letters ; or in that of hundreds of men who have contributed 
to the production of a penny newspaper. The mass of small 
coin thus becomes a labor->iaving machine, facilitating com- 
bination, and giving utility to countless billions of minutes 
that would be wasted were there not a demand for them at 
the moment when the power to labor had been produced. 
Labor being the first price paid for every thing we value, the 
jirogress of communities is in the direct ratio of the presence 
or absence of the instai^t demand for the forces, mental and 
physical, of each individual, resulting from the power to offer 
in exchange for it something equivalent in value. It is the 
only commodity that perishes at the instant of production, 
and" that, if not then put to use, is lost forever j and in order 



282 CHAPTER XXIII. § 2. 

that it may be so used, there must exist that incessant 
division, subdivision, and recomposition, which attends an 
active commerce. This is seen in the case above referred to, 
where coal, iron, and lead-miners, furnace-men, machine- 
makers, rag-gatherers, carters, bleachers and makers of bleach- 
ing-powders, railroad and canal men, type-makers, composi- 
tors, pressmen, authors, editors, publishers, news-boys, and 
hosts of others, combine their efforts for the production of a 
heap of newspapers that is to be at once divided among its 
hundreds of thousands of consumers. Each of these latter 
pays a single cent, and then perhaps subdivides it so that the 
cost to each reader may be no more than a cent a week, yet 
each obtains his share of the labor of all the persons by whom 
it had been produced. 

Of all the phenomena of society, this process of division, 
subdivision, composition, and recomposition, is the most 
remarkable ; and yet, being a thing of such common occur- 
rence, it scarcely attracts the slightest notice. Were tho 
newspaper referred to divided into squares, each of which 
should i-epresent the labor of one of the persons who had con- 
tributed to it, it would be found to be resolved into very many 
thousand pieces of various sizes, each representing a little 
scrap of human effort. Numerous as are these latter, they 
are all combined in every single sheet ; and each member of 
the community may, for the most trifling piece of money, 
enjoy the advantage of the informa^tion therein contained, as 
fully as if it had been collected for himself alone. 

Improvements in the modes of transportation are highly 
important, yet do they render but little service to man when 
compared with their cost. Those of a ship worth $50,000, 
employed in effecting exchanges between men on the opposite 
sides of the Atlantic, cannot exceed five or six thousand tons 
per annum ; whereas a furnace of the same cost will effect the 
transmutation of 30,000 tons weight of coal, ore, limestone, 
food, and clothing, into iron. Nevertheless, the labor exchanged 
by means of this latter, will not exceed in its money value 
a quarter of a million of dollars. Let this be compared with 
the commerce- effected in a year by the help of $50,000 worth 
of little white pieces representing labor to the extent of three 
or five cents, and it will be found that the service rendered by 
each dollar is greater than is rendered by hundreds, if not 
thousands, employed in manufactures, or' tens of thousands in 
ships or railroads ; and yet there are able writers who tell 
lis, and with the utmost gravity, that money is " an iiu 



OF T[IE INSTIUIMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 283 

portant portion of the capita] of the country that produces 
nothing." 

" Money, as money," says Mr. J. S. Mill, "satisfies no want, 
answers no purpose." The difference between a country with, 
and one without it, would, as he thinks, be only one of con- 
venience, like grinding- by water instead of bj' hand. In like 
manner, however, a ship, as a ship, a road, as a road, a cotton- 
mill, as a cotton-mill, "satisfies no want, answeis no pur- 
pose." They can be neither eaten, drunk, nor worn. All, 
however, are instruments for facilitating the wojk of associa- 
tion. To what extent they do so, as compared with monej', 
we may now inquire. 

Let us suppose that by some sudden convulsion of nature 
all the ships of the world were annihilated, and try to imagine 
what would be the effect ? Ship-owners would lose heavily ; 
sailors and porters would be thrown out of employment ; 
the price of wheat would temporarily fall, while that of cloth 
would, for the moment, rise. At the close of a single veai 
most of the operations of society would be moving as before, 
commerce at home having taken the place of that abroad 
Cotton and tropical productions would be less easily obtained 
in northern climes, and cloth less easily in southern ones ; but 
in the chief exchanges of a society like that of France, Ger- 
many, or these United States, there would be, even for the 
moment, scarcely an}^ suspension. So far otherwise, indeed, 
would it be, that in many countries commerce would have 
become far more active, the loss of ships producing a demand 
for the opening of mines, for the construction of furnaces and 
mill.s, that would make a market for labor such as had never 
before been known. 

Let us next suppose that the ships had l)een spared, and 
all the gold and silver annihilated, and look at the effect. 
The reader of newspapers, unable to pay for them in beef, 
cloth, or iron, would be compelled to dispense with his usual 
supply of intelligence, and the journal would no longer be 
])rinted. Omnibuses would cease to run for want of six- 
pences, and places of amusement would be closed for want 
of shillings. Commerce would be at an end, except so far as 
it might be possible to effect direct exchanges, food being 
given for labor, or wool for cloth. These, however, could be 
few in number, and men, women, and children would perish 
by millions becau.se of the inability to obtain food and cloth- 
ing in exchange for service. Large cities would soon exhibit 
blocks of unoccupied buildings, and the gra.ss would grow in 



2S4 ciiAr-TEii xxiir. § 3. 

their streets. Men might, it is true, return to the usages of 
those primitive times wiien wheat or iron, tobacco" or copper, 
constituted the medium of exchange ; but society, as at 
present constituted, could have no existence. Tons of such 
commodities would be needed to pay for the food consumed 
in a single eating-house, or the amusement furnished in a 
single theatre ; and how the wheat, iron, or copper, could be 
fairly divided among the people who had contributed to the 
production of the food or the amusement, would be a question 
entirely incapable of solution.* 

The precious metals are to the social body what atmos- 
pheric air is to the physical one ; both supply the machinery 
of circulation, and the resolution of the physical body into its 
elements when deprived of the one, is not more certain than 
that of the social body when deprived of the other. Of all 
the labor-saving machinery in use among men, there is none 
that so much economizes human power and facilitates com- 
bination as that known by the name of money. Wealth, or 
the power to command nature's services, grows with every 
increase in the facility of combination ; and this latter grows 
with the ability to command the aid of the precious metals. 
Wealth, then, should increase most rapidly where that ability 
is most complete. 

§ 3. The power of a commodity to command money in 
exchange is called its price. Prices fluctuate, much food and 
wool being sometimes, or at some places, given for little 
money, while at others much money is given for little of either 
wool or food. What are the circumstances which tend to 
affect prices generally, we may now consider. 

A thousand tons of rags, or wool, at the Rocky Mountains, 
would not exchange for the smallest piece of money ; whereas, 
a quire of paper would command, perhaps, an ounce of silver. 
Passing eastward to the plains of Kansas, their relative 
values would have so much changed, that the price of the 
rags would pay for many reams of paper. Coming to St. 
Louis, a further change would be experienced, rags having 
again risen, and paper again fallen. So, too, at every stage 
of the progress eastward, until in Massachusetts, three pounds 
of rags would command more silver than would purchase a 

* The legal tender notes now in use throughout these United 
States are substitutes for the precious metals, and their value in 
exchange for commodities varies with the variation in their value 
'.n exchanges for gold. 



OF THE INSTRcMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 



285 



pound of the paper made from tliem. The following diagram 
exhibits these chano:es : — 




Massachusetts. 



The price of raw materials ten("'s to rise as we approach 
those places at which men are most enabled to combine for 
obtaining power to command the services of the great forces 
of nature. That of finished commodities moves in an opposite 
direction, both tending thus to more close approximation. 
Cotton is low on the plantation, but high in Manchester or 
Lowell. Corn in Illinois is often so cheap that a bushel does 
not even pay for a yard of coarse cotton cloth, whereas in 
Manchester it paj^s for a dozen yards. 

Raw materials tend to rise in price with the progress of 
men in wealth and civilization. What, however, is raw 
material ? In answer to this question, we may say, that all 
the products of the earth are, in turn, finished commodity and 
raw material. Coal and ore are the finished commodity of 
the miner, but the raw material of pig iron. The latter is 
the finished commodity of the smelter, yet only the raw 
material of the puddler, and of iiim who rolls the bar. The 
bar is again the raw material of sheet iron, and that, in turn, 
becomes the raw material of the nail and the spike. These, 
in time, become the raw material of tlie house, in the dimin- 
ished cost of which are concentrated all the changes in the 
various stages of passage from the rude ore, lying useless in 
the earth, to the nail and spike, the hammer and saw, used in 
the construction of a dwelling. 

In the early and barbarous ages of society land and labor 
are very low in price, and the richest deposits of coal and ore 
are worthless. Houses are then obtained with such exceed- 
ing difficulty, that men are forced to depend for shelter against 
wind and rain upon holes and caves they find existing in the 
earth. In time, they are enabled to cuml)ine their efforts ; 



286 CHAPTER XXIII. § 4. 

and with every step in the course of progress, land and labor 
acquire power to command money in exchanj^e, while houses 
lose it. As the services of fuel are more readily commanded, 
pio^ iron is more easily obtained. Both, in turn, facilitate the 
making of bars and sheets, nails and spikes, all of these in 
turn facilitating the creation of boats, ships, and houses ; but 
each and every of these improvements tends to augment the 
prices of the original raw materials — land and labor. At no 
period in the history of the world has the general price of 
these latter been so high as in the present one ; at none would 
the same quantity of money have purchased so staunch a 
boat, so fleet a ship, or so comfortable a house. 

The more finished a commodity, the greater is the tendency 
to a fall of price ; and for the same reason, that all the econo- 
mies of labor of the earlier processes are accumulated together 
in the later ones. Houses, thus, profit by all improvements 
in the making of bricks, in the quarrying of stone, in the con ■ 
version of lumber, and in the working of the metals. So, 
too, is it with articles of clothing — every improvement in the 
various processes of spinning, weaving, and dyeing, and in 
the conversion of clothing into garments, being found gathered 
together in the coat. The more numerous those improve- 
ments, the lower will be its price, while the higher will be 
that of the land and labor to which the wool is due. 

§ 4. The views now presented may be embodied in the fol- 
lowing propositions : — 

Man seeks association with his fellow-man. It is his first 
and greatest need : 

That he may associate, there must be that development of 
individuality w-hich results from diversity of employments, 
the artisan taking his place by the side of the planter and the 
farmer, and exchanging services with them : 

That such exchanges may be readily made, there is needed 
an instrument which shall be small in bulk, easily preserved, 
capable of almost infinite division and subdivision, readily 
convertible into various commodities required for the pur- 
poses of man, and for all these reasons universally ac- 
ceptable : 

That this instrument is furnished by Providence in the two 
metals, gold and silver, each of them possessing all the quali- 
ties above described : 

That the more, abundant the supply of these metals, the 
more instant become the exchanges of society, the more rapid 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 287 

the societary circulation, the greater the economy of mental 
and physical force, and the greater the power to produce 
commodities to be offered in exchange : 

That the countries wliich furnish them to the world are 
distant from those which produce cotton and corn, lead and 
iron : 

Tliat the obstacles to exchanges between the countries that 
ilo, and those that do not, produce them, result from the 
ueces.sity for effecting changes of place ; and that they exist 
in the ratio of the difficult}^ of transferring the things required 
to be exchanged : 

That land and labor are the things least susceptible of being 
changed in place ; and that they are always in the early stages 
of society very low in price : 

That the most highly finished commodities, as more sus- 
ceptible of being transported, are, in those ages, very high 
in price : 

That with the growth of wealth and of diversity of employ- 
ments, the bulk of commodities tends steadily towards diminu- 
tion, corn and wool becoming combined in the form of cloth, 
and being thus enabled readily to travel to the gold-and-silver 
producing countries of the world : 

That with every such change in the form of the rude pro- 
ducts of the earth international exchange is facilitated; and 
that with the growth of domestic and foreign commerce there 
is a tendency towards equality of price, that of highly finished 
commodities falling, and that of rude products rising — the 
rise being greatest as we approach most nearly to the 
ultimate raw material of all commodities, land and labor : 

That this approximation of prices is a consequence of 
increased facility of combination, which is, itself, a conse- 
quence of increased ability to command the services of the 
great instrument of association ; and that with every stage 
of progress in this direction there is a tendency to equality, 
among the varioiis members of a community, in the power 
to obtain the commodities and things required for the main- 
tenance and improvem-ent of their physical, moral, and mental 
forces, with daily augmentation of their ability to command 
the aid of the natural forces placed at their service by a 
bounteous Providence : 

That the greater that ability the greater must be the ten- 
dency towards increase in the price of land and labor and of 
the rude products of l)oth, towards an equality in the prices 
of the more and the less finished commodities, and towards 



288 CHAPTER xxin. § 4. 

an approximation in the character of the books, clothing, 
furniture, and dwellings of the various portions of society ; 
and the greater the power to maintain commerce between 
those countries which do, and those which do not, yield the 
metals which constitute the raw material of money. 

For proof of the truth of these propositions the reader may 
look to any of the advancing communities of the world. In 
the days when the French peasant was required to give 
an ox for a ream and a half of paper, wine was much higher 
than at present, peaches M^ere unattainable, the finer vege- 
tables were unknown, and an ell of Dutch linen exchanged 
for the equivalent of 60 francs ($11 25). Now, the price 
ui meat has wonderfully increased and the farm laborer is 
better paid ; so that with the price of an ox the farmer can 
purchase better wine than then was drunk by kings, can 
obtain not only paper but books and newspapers, can con- 
sume apricots and peaches, tea, sugar, and coffee, and can 
have a supply of linen that would, in earlier times, have 
almost sufficed for the entire household of a duke. Such are 
some of the results of an increase in the facility of combina- 
tion among men ; and the instrument to which they are most 
indebted for the power of combination, is that to which we 
give the name of money. 

Let us now inquire what are the circumstances under 
which the power to command the use of this instrument 
tends towards increase or diminution. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 28J 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

OF THE INSTRUMENT OP ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

II. — Of the Supply of Honey. 

{ 1. Commodities tend to leave those places at which they have the least utility and 
greatest value, and to seek those at whiih their value is least and their utility greatest. 
The raw material of money flows, therefore, from those places at which food and wool 
are cheap and cloth and iron dear, towards those at which the former are dear and the 
latter cheap.* 

I 2. Flowing always towards those countries in which raw materials and finished com- 
modities approximate most in price, the power to command their services is proof con- 
clusive of advancing civilization. 

J 3. Central and Northern Europe now becoming the great reservoirs of those metals. 
The more the rude products of their soil rise in price the greater must be the tendency 
of gold and silver in that direction. Raw materials tend to leave the countries in which 
employments are not diversified, and to go to those in which diversification moet exists. 
The precious metals follow in their train. 

J 4. Results of American experience. Excels export of those metals in all the free trado 
periods, and excess import of them in all the protected ones. Stoppage of the societary 
circulation in the former, and increased rapidity of movcinent in the latter. General 
tendency of American policy that of reducing the prices of rude products and increasing 
those of finished commodities. 

§ 5. Money the indispensable instrviment of society. Of all the instruments in use among 
men, the one that performs the largest amount of service in proportion to its cost. 
Economists assert that the oidy effect of an influx of the precious metals is that of 
rendering a country a good place to sell in, but a bad one in which to buy. That theory 
contradicted by all the facts of history, the direct tendency of such influx having, and 
that invariably, been that of reducing the prices of the finished commodities required 
by the producers of gold and silver. With every step in this direction agriculture tends 
to become a science, and the supply of f lod becimies more abundant. 

g 6. The use of circulating notes tends to diminish the value of the precious metals, while 
increasing their utility. All commodities going to those places at which theu' utility is 
greatest, the use of such notes should promote the influx of those metals. Error of 
Great Britain and the United States in seeking to promote that influx bj' means of a 
war against cuxulating notes. 

§ 1. Utility is the measure of marVs power over nature. 
The more complete the development of the utility of any 
commodity, the larger is the demand for it, and the greatei 
the tendency towards increase in the supply and decline of 

* The reader may be disposed here to ask : Can it be, that wheat 
has greater value in Ohio wherf* it is pro(iuced, than in England to 
which it is sent ? It has, and for the reason that less lal)or is re- 
quired in the latter for the production of 40 bushels to the acre 
than is given in the former for obtaining 10 or 12. Value is 
tile measure of nature's resistance to the gratification of man's 
desires. That resistance diminishes as the market is brought 
nearer to the farmer, and as agriculture becomes more and more a 
science. It increases with every increase in the necessity for send- 
ing to a distance the produce of the farm, andtlius annihilating tlie 
power to return to the soil the refuse of its products. 



290 ciiArTER XXIV. § 2. 

its value. Raw materials always tend towards those places 
in which their utility is greatest, and there the value of the 
finished article is always least. Wheat tends towards the 
grist-mill, and there flour is cheapest. Cotton tends towards 
the mills at which it is to be spun and Avoven, and cloth is 
there very cheap, while always high on the plantation on 
which the wool had been produced. 

Such precisely is the case with the precious metals which 
are always tending towards the places where their utility 
is greatest — where men most combine their efforts — and 
where the charge for the use of money is lowest; leaving 
those at which their utility is small and in which combination 
of action least exists, a state of affairs always attended by a 
high rate of interest. 

§ 2. For more than a century Britain was the reservoii' 
into which was discharged the major part of the gold and 
silver produced throughout the world. There, the artisan 
and the farmer were most nearly brought together, land and 
labor were most utilized, and the consumption of the precious 
metals greatest. Now, all is different. Great Britain having 
passed from being a place at which commodities are produced 
to be given in exchange for the produce of other lands, to 
being a mere place of exchange for the people of those lands, 
the power to retain the precious metals has correspondingly 
diminished. 

The gold of California does not, to any material extent, 
remain in these United States. Touching the Atlantic coast, 
it is thence transferred to Britain, where it meets the product 
of Australia, the two amounting annually to more than 
$100,000,000. Both come there, however, merely in transit, 
being destined ultimately to pay the people of the Continent 
for raw products that have been converted and exported, or 
finished ones that have been consumed. Much of it goes to 
France, and there remains, because French exports are almost 
ivholly composed of the dii^ect products of French labor, while 
Evgland does little but buy foreign food and other raw ma- 
terials, change their form.s, and then re-export them. Tho 
position of the former is that of the enlightened farmer, who 
sells his productions in their highest form and is there- 
fore free to apply to the support of his family, the educa- 
tion of his children, and the improvement of his land, tht 
tvhole jf the commodities he receives in exchange. That ol 
the latter is the position of the trader, who passes through 



OF TtIF, INSraVMKN'T OF ASSOCIATION. 291 

his hands a hir<>:c amount of property of which he is entitled 
to retain the amount of IiLs cominis.sion and nothing more. 
The one lias an immense and growing commerce ; the other 
performs a vast amount of trade. 

§ 3. The precious metals are steadily flowing towards the 
north and centre of Europe, to Denmark and Sweden, Austria 
and Belgium, but especially to Northern Germany, now so 
rapidly advancing in civilization. These countries, as well 
as France, are large importers of raw materials, and gold and 
silver always follow in their train. Directly the reverse of 
tills, there has been an unceasing drain of the precious metals 
from Ireland, Turkey, and Portugal, followed by a decline in 
the productiveness and price of land, and in the freedoui, 
happiness, and power of man. The povert\' of Spain increased 
fi'um the hour vvlien, by expelling her manufacture, she 
made herself dependent on the workshops of other countries. 
Mistress of Mexico and Peru, she acted merely as the con- 
duit through which their wealth passed to the advancing 
countries of the earth, as is now the case with Great Britain 
and these United States. 

Raw materials and the precious metals tend, thus, toward 
those countries in which, employments being most diversified, 
land and labor tend most to rise. 

They tend from those in which, employments being least 
diversified, the power of combination least exists. 

The portions of the world from which the precious 
metals flow, in which agriculture declines and njen become 
less free, are those which follow in the lead of England, pre- 
ferring trade to commerce — Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, India, 
Carolina, and other exclusively agricultural countries.* 

The portions toward which they flow are those which fol- 
low in the lead of France, preferring the extension of com- 
merce to the enlargement of the trader's power. Germany, 
Denmark, Sweden, and New England, are in this position. 
In all of them agriculture becomes more a science as employ- 
ments become more diversified, the returns to agricultural 
labor increasing as raw materials rise in price. 

* Recent stoppage in tlie supply of American cotton has caused 
a great demand ui'on India for that most necessary commodity, with 
large increase of price, and consequent increase in the necessity for 
exporting to the East the produce of the mines of Mexico, the 
Indian government having persisted in maintaining silver as tlie 
standard by wliich the value of all other commodities must bo 
measured. 



292 CHAPTER XXIV. § 4. 

In the countries to wliicli they flow, the prices of raw 
matei'ials and of finished commodities tend steadily to approx- 
imate, the farmer giving smaller quantities of wool and corn 
for larger quantities of iron and of cloth; 

In all those from which they flow, those prices become more 
widely separated, the planter giving more of wool or corn, 
for less of cloth or iron. 

§ 4. Inquiring now how far the views above presented are 
in accordance with the experience of these United States, we 
find that whenever their policy has tended towards bringing 
the artisan to the side of the farmer, they have been importers 
of the precious metals ; and that the contrary effect has been 
produced whenever the opposite policy has been pursued ; 
limited, however, for the period immediately following the 
change, by the existence of a credit that has enabled them to 
run in debt to Europe, and thus for a time to arrest the export 
of the precious metals. The course of trade in reference to 
those metals during the thirt}'^ years preceding the discovery 
of the California gold deposits was as follows : — 

Excess exports. Excess imports. 

1821-1825 $12,500,000 

1826-1829 $4,000,000 

1830-18.34 20,000,000 

1835-1838 34,000,000 

1839-1842 9,000,000 

1843-1847 39,000,000 

1848-1850 14,000,000 

We see here, that in the closing years of the free-trade 
system of 181*7 the average annual excess of specie export 
was about $12,500,000. If to this be added only a similar 
amount for consumption in the arts, and waste, we obtain a 
diminution of $25,000,000, while the population had increased 
ten per cent. That those years should have been marked by 
calamity, affords, therefore, no cause for surprise. At Pitts- 
burg, flour sold at $1 25 per barrel ; wheat, in Ohio, for 
20 cents a bushel ; while a ton of bar iron required nearly 
80 barrels of flour to pay for it. Such was the state of affairs 
that produced the tariff of 1824, by means of which, imperfectly 
protective as it was, an inward current was soon established. 
The total net import under it was $4,000,000. In 1828 was 
enacted the first tariff tending directly to the promotion of 
association throughout the country ; and its effects are seen 
in an excess import of the precious metals, averaging as much 



OF THE I.VSTKUMENT UF ASSOCIATION. 293 

jiniuially, notwitlustandiiijr tlie dischai-<re of the wliolii of the 
national debt that had becMi held in Europe, amounting to 
many millions. Putting- together the discharge of debt and 
the import of coin, the balance of trade must have been in 
favor of the country to the extent of more than $10,000,000 
a year. As a consequence, prosperity then existed to an 
extent never before known, and the list of free commodities 
was greatly enlarged, tea, sugar, and many others being 
added to it. Thus did efficient protection carri/ the cowitry 
one great step forward in the direction of freedom of inter- 
national commerce. 

The first few years of the Compromise tariff of 1833 profited 
largely of the prosperity produced by the 4-ct of 1828. Five 
years of protection had raised American credit to a point 
tliat until then had not been thought of, with the effect of 
facilitating the contraction of foreign debt to an immense 
amount, thereby stopping the export of specie, and producing 
an excess import averaging more than $8,000,000. Prosperity 
eeemed to exist, but it was of the same description that marks 
the present period (1850), when the value of all property 
BO entirely depends on the power to obtain foreign cloth and 
foreign iron in exchange for bonds. 

As the free-trade tariff became more fully operative 
furnaces and factories were closed, with constantly increasing 
necessity for remittances of specie. The annual export, never- 
theless, but little exceeded $2,000,000 ; but if we add to this 
$3,000,000 for consumption, we have in four3'ears a reduction 
of $20,000,000, accompanied by an almost total suspension 
of the societary circulation. The whole country was in a 
state of ruin, laborers were thrown out of employment, and 
the power of accumulation ceased to have existence. 

The change in the value of labor consequent upon this 
trivial reduction, cannot be placed at less than $500,000,000 
a year ; and yet the difference in regard to money, between 
the two periods ending in 1833 and 1842, was only that 
between an excess import of $5,000,000 and an excess export 
of $2,500 000, giving a total of $7,500,000 a year. No one 
who studies these facts can fail to be struck with the wonder- 
ful power over the conditions of men 'exerted by the metals 
provided by the Creator for furthering the work of association 
among mankind. Of all the machinery furnished for man's 
use, there is none so equalizing in its tendency as money ; 
and yet men claiming to l)e regarded as economists would 
have us believe that the satisfactioi\ felt in the knowledge that 



294 CHAPTER XXIV. § 4. 

it is flowing in, is evidence of ignorance, and that any reference 
to the balance of trade is beneath the dignity of men who 
tread in the footsteps of Hume and Adam Smith. 

The condition of the nation in 1842 was humiliating in the 
extreme. The Treasury was unable to negotiate a loan at 
6 per cent, in the same foreign markets in which it had 
recently paid off at par a debt bearing an interest of only 
3 per cent. Some even of the oldest States had been forced 
to suspend the payment of interest on their debts. The 
banks were, to a great extent, in a state of suspension, while 
those which professed to redeem their notes were fettered by 
the demand for coin to go abroad. Throughout a large por- 
tion of the country the use of the precious metals had wholly 
ceased. The Federal government, lately so rich, was driven 
to the use of inconvertible paper money in its transactions 
with the people. Of the merchants, a large portion had 
become bankrupt. Commerce, whether domestic or foreign, 
had scarcely an existence. Nevertheless, so magical was the 
effect of a measure calculated to turn the balance of trade, that 
scarcely had the Act of August, 1842, become a law, when 
the government found that all its wants could be supplied al 
home. Labor became again in demand, and before the close 
of the third year of protection, prosperity almost universal 
reigned. States recommenced payment of interest on th<'ir 
debts, railroads and canals again paid dividends, and real 
estate doubled in value ; and yet the average net import of 
specie during the first four years was but $4,250,000. 
The last year was marked by the Irish famine, when 
the demand for food caused an import of no less than 
$22,000,000, making a total in five years of $39,000,000. 
Deducting $4,000,000 a year for consumption, we have an 
annual increase for circulation of less than $5,000,000; yet 
the differences in the prices of labor and land, as compared 
with 1842, would be moderately estimated at $2000,000,000. 
With 184T, however, there came another change of policy, 
the nation having then again been called upon to try the 
system under which it had so lately been prostrated. In 
compliance with the orders of foreign traders and pro-slavery 
dictators, protection was again repudiated ; and within three 
years factories and furnaces were once more closed, labor 
was again everywhere seeking demand, and gold again flowed 
out even more rapidly than it had come in under the protec- 
tive tariff of 1842. The excess export of these three years 
amounted, as shown above, to $14,000,000, and if to this be 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 295 

added as niucli for consumption, it follows that the veduc- 
tiou ill those years must have been fully equal to the iiiereaso 
under the protective system. Circulation was everywhere 
heing suspended, and a crisis was close at hand, when forlu- 
natnly lor the advocates of the free trade policy, the gold 
deposits of California were brought to light. 

in the year 1^50-51, tiie quantity received from that 
source vva& more than $40,000,000, of which one-half was 
retained at home. The consequence was a reduction in the 
rate of interest, and the re-establishment of commerce. In 
1851-2, $36,000,000 were exported, leaving perhaps eight or 
ten millions, which, added to that retained in 1851, made an 
addition to the currency of probably $80,000,000, with great 
increase of the societary circulation. The following 3'ears 
gave still a slight increase, but in '54 and '55 the export rose 
to $97,000,000. Adding to this a domestic consumption of 
probably $25,000,000, w^e obtain a total amount withdrawn 
exceeding the receipts from all the world. As a conse- 
quence of this there is now good reason for doubting if 
the effective addition to the coin much exceeds a dollar a 
head. It may possibly amount in all to thirty or thirty-live 
niiUions ; and small as is that sum it would have produced a 
great effect in promoting the rapidity of circulation, had it not 
been that the indebtedness to foreign countries had so much 
increased as to need, for the payment of interest alone, an 
annual remittance equal to the whole export of food to all the 
world, thereby palsying the movements of commerce. As a 
consequence, tlie country now (1856) presents the extra- 
ordinary spectacle of a community owning one of the great 
sources of supply for money, in which the price paid for its 
use is thrice, and in some parts six or eight times, as great as 
in those countries which find their gold mines in their furnaces 
and factories. 

The power to command the services of the precious metals 
grows with ttie grow^th of association. The policy of the 
United States is hostile to association, and hence it is that 
cotton, flour, and tobacco decline in price, while money- 
remains so dear. 

§ 5. " In every kingdom into which money begins to flow 
in greater abundance than formerly, every thing," says Mr. 
Hume, "takes a new face : labor and industry gain life ; the 
merchant becomes more enterprising, the manufacturer more 
diligent and skillful ; and even the farmer follows his plouj;;!! 
with more alacrity and attention." 



296 CHAPTER XXIV. § 5. 

That this is so, is well known. Wh}' should it be so '( 
Because the societaiy circulation then becomes more rapid, 
and all power, whether in the physical or social world, results 
from motion. Of all the machinery in use among men, there 
is none that exercises over their actions so great an influence 
as that which gathers up, divides, and subdivides, the minutes 
of which the time of a community is composed. It is the 
indispensahle machinery of progress ; and therefore do we 
see in all poor communities so constant an effort to obtain 
something to be used in place of it. In the Western States, 
a currency of some description is felt to be among the prime 
necessities of life. Many of the Eastern banks supply notes 
expressly for Western circulation, and the people tiiere receive 
and pass them from hand to hand, because any money is Ijetter 
than none, and good they cannot get because metallic money 
flows from the place where the charge for its use is high, to 
that at which it is low. Money thus obeys the same law as 
water — seeking always the lowest level. 

W^e are told by Mr. Hume— ^and in that he is followed by 
most teachers of the modern political economy — that an increase 
in the supply of gold and silver can have no other effect than 
that of " heightening the price of commodities, and obliging 
every one to pay more of tliese little yellow or white pieces 
for every thing he purchases." Were such the case, it would 
be little short of a miracle that we should see money always 
passing in the same direction-^/o the countries that are rich 
and from those that are poor, so poor that they cannot keep 
the little needed for their few exchanges. The gold of Siberia 
leaves a land where labor is at the lowest price, to seek St. 
Petersburg, where it will purchase less than it would do at 
home ; and that of Virginia and Carolina goes year after year 
to the countries to which they send their cotton and their 
wheat. The silver of Mexico and its cochineal travel together 
to the same market ; and the same steamer carries to Britain 
the gold of Australia and the wool of its flocks. 

Every addition to the stock of money, as we are assured 
by the ingenious men of modern days engaged in compiling 
treasury tables and financial reports, renders a country a good 
place to sell in, but a bad place to buy in ; and as the trader's 
object is to attract customers, he is led by this theory to 
believe, that the less the supply of money, the gi'eater will be 
his trade. To what countries, however, have men resorted 
when they have desired to purchase ? Have they not gone, 
until recently, almost exclusively to Britain ? Why ? Because 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 297 

it has been there that finished commodities wej'e cheapest. 
Where have they gone to sell ? Has it not been to Britain ? 
Certainly, because there gold, wheat, cotton, and other rude 
products were dearest. Where do they now go to purchase 
silk or cloth ? To France or Germany, because there raw 
materials are highest, and finished ones cheapest. Gold fol- 
lows raw materials generally ; and such being the case, it 
would seem that increase in the supply of money, so far frcm 
having the effect of causing men to give two pieces for an 
article that could before have been had for one, has, on the 
contrary, that of enabling them to obtain for one piece tlie 
commodity that had be/ore cod tico. 

Money tends to diminish the obstacles interposed between 
the producer and the consumer, precisely as do railroads and 
mills. Every diminution in the competition of railroads, or 
in the number of mills and furnaces, tends to lessen the price 
of labor and land ; and so does, in a still higher degree, every 
diminution in the supply of money. Why such is the case 
is, that with every improvement in the machinery of exchange, 
the proportion of the transporter, the miller, and the owner 
of money, is diminished, leaving more to be divided between 
the producers and the consumers. Both obtain larger wages 
and are enabled to apply more capital to the improvement of 
land or the conversion of its products, thus cheapening the 
products of the garden and the factory. Manufactures, and 
the higher products of a skillful agriculture, fruits, garden 
vegetables, and flowers, steadily decline in price in all 
countries into which money is flowing : because agi-icultural 
improvement always accompanies manufactures, and manu- 
factures always attract the precious metals. Food thus 
becomes more abundant in those countries into which gold 
flows, and less so in those from which it> goes. In all the 
latter, land and labor are low in price. Give them manufac- 
tures, enabling their people to combine their eflbrts, and they 
will obtain and retain gold ; then they will make roads, and 
the supplies of food will increase as cloth and iron become 
cheaper and land and labor rise in price. The most neces- 
sary part of the machinery of exchange being that which 
facilitates the passage of labor and its products from hand to 
hand, any diminution of its quantity is felt with tenfold more 
severity than is a diminution in the quantity of railroad cars 
or steamboats. Nevertheless, writers who congratulate the 
nation on the building of new ships, look with indifference 
on a drain of the precious metals that must always be attended 



298 CHAPTER XXIV. § 0. 

by a diminution of that societaiy motion to which alone we 
can safely look for increase of force. 

.§ 6. The use of bank-notes tends, we are told, to promote 
the expulsion of gold. Were this so, it would be in oppo- 
sition to the great general law in virtue of which all com- 
modities tend to, and not from, the places where their utility 
is greatest. A bank is a machine for utilizing money, by 
enabling A, B, or C, to obtain the use of it at the time 
when D,. E, and F — its owners — do not need its services. 
Tlie effect of the establisliment of such institutions in the 
cities of Italy, Holland, and other countries, was always that 
of causing money to flow towards those cities, because it was 
in and around them that its utilities were most developed. 
Even then, there were difficulties attendant on its exchange, 
the owner having been required to go to the banking-house, 
and write it off to other parties. Later, they were permitted 
to draw checks, by means of which they could transfer their 
property without stirring from their houses. 

The difficulty, however, still existed, that private individ- 
uals not being generally known, such checks could, in general, 
effect but a single transfer ; and thus the recipient of money 
found himself obliged to go through the operation of taking 
possession of that which had been transferred to him, after 
which he had in his turn to draw a check when he, himself, 
desired to effect another change of ownership. To obviate 
this circulating notes were invented, and by their help 
property in money is now transferred with such rapidity that 
a single hundred dollars passes from hand to hand fifty times 
a day, effecting exchanges, perhaps, to the extent of many 
thousands, and without the parties being required to devote 
a single instant to ihe work of counting, or carrying, the coin. 
This was a great invention, for by it the utility of money was 
so much increased as to enable a thousand pieces to do the 
vork that without it would have required hundreds of 
thousands. 

This, we are told, supersedes gold and silver, and causes 
them to be exported. Money, however, promotes the socie- 
tary circulation, and the more rapid that circulation the 
greater will always be the demand for the precious metals. 
The check and the bank-note, therefore, stimulate their im- 
port, as is proved by the fact, that for a century past, thc-y 
have flowed towards Britain, where such notes were most in 
use. Their use increases rapidly in France, with constant 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 2.')9 

increase in the inward flow of gold. So, too, does it in 
Germany, towards which the precious metals flow so steadily 
tluit notes which are the representatives of money are rapidly 
taking- the place of those irredeemable pieces of paper by which 
the use of coin has so long been superseded. 

Bank-notes increase the utility of gold and silver, and 
should, therefore, attract, not repel them. Nevertheless, the 
two nations of the world which claim best to understand the 
principles of commerce, are now (1856) engaged in a crusade 
against such notes, in the vain hope of thereby attracting the 
precious metals. England in this follows America, Sir Robert 
Peel's restrictions being several years later in date than the 
declaration of war fulminated against circulating notes by the 
Federal government. It is a pure absurdity ; and its adop- 
tion here is due to the fact that our system tends to that 
expulsion of the precious metals which always follows per- 
sistence in that barbarous policy which looks to export to 
distant countries of the raw products yielded by the earth. 
The precious metals are great civilizers, and they fly from all 
those communities which give their powers to the proper 
work of the barbarian and the slave. At one time only, 
within the last twenty years, has there been any excess im- 
port of them, and that was under the highly protective tariff 
of 1842. Then, money became abundant and cheap, because 
the policy of the country looked to the promotion of associa- 
tion and the extension of domestic commerce as the foundation 
on which to build a great international commerce. Now, 
notwithstanding the vast additions made by California and 
Australia to the stock of the precious metals, it is scarce and 
dear, because that policy limits the power of association, 
and establishes the supremacy of trade. What are the cir- 
cumstances which tend to influence the charge for the use of 
money, we may now examine. 



800 CHAPTER XXV. § 1. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

OP THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

III. — Of the Charge for the Use of Honey. 

j 1. The charge for the use of land, houses, ships, and all other commodities and thrngs, 
declines with every diminution in the cost of reproduction. So, too, with money, the 
rate of interest tending downwards, as man acquires greater power for the direction of 
the natural forces — that power constituting wealth. Interest, therefore, tends to fill 
in all those countries which follow in the lead of Colbert and of France, while rising in 
all those that follow in the lead of England. Phenomena presented for consideration by 
the United States. r 

§ 2. Money is capital, but capital is not necessarily money. Interest paid for the use of 
money alone. Various modes in which compensation is made for the use of capital in 
its various forms. Error of distinguished economists in supposing that interest is pai'j 
for the use of capital in other forms than that of money. Tendency of interest to fall 
as the societary motion becomes more rapid. 

§3. The utility of. money . increases as its circulation becomes more rapid. Its value 
increases as its movement becomes retarded. 

I 4. Increase in the supply of money tends to promote equality among men. Phenomena 
observed in India, France, and Holland. 

g 5. Communities increase in strength as the rate of interest declines — raw products then 
rising, and finished commodities falling, and thus presenting evidence of advancing 
civilization. Teachings of economists generally in regard to money directly opposed 
to the lessons taught by the common sense of mankind. Gold and silver properly 
denominated the precious metals — -being, of all commodities, those which most contribnto 
to the development of individuality, and to the promotion of the power of association. 

§ 1. With every increase in the facility of reproduction, 
there is a decline in the value of all existing things of a 
similar kind, attended by a diminution in the price paid for 
their use. The charge for the use of the existing money 
tends, therefore, to decline as man acquires control over the 
great forces provided by the Creator for his service ; as is 
shown by the gradual diminution of the rate of interest in 
every advancing country. So, too, is it as we pass from tho 
sparsely-peopled regions beyond the Mississippi toward the 
more thickly settled New England States, interest varying in 
the first from 15 to 60 per cent., while in the last its greatest 
variation is from 5 to 20 per cent. Look, too, where we may, 
we shall find that the tendency towards diminution of the 
charge for the use of money is in the ratio of the approx- 
imation of the prices of finished commodities to those of raw 
materials, land and labor included. 

The power to purchase money and consequent decline in 
the rate of interest, exists in every community in the precise 
ratio of the activity of the societary circulation. In the free- 
trade period that followed the close of the great European 



OF THE INSsTllVMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 301 

war, circulation in these United States almost cea.'sed, lalxir 
was everN'wliere being wasted, and money was almost unat- 
tainable at any price. After the passage of the Act of 1828, 
every thing was different : the circulation became rapid, labor 
was in demand, and money became cheap. With the Com- 
promise tariff of 1833 the scene once more changed ; produc- 
tion declined, while money rose with such rapidity that banks 
suspended. States defaulted, and the Federal government 
became absolutely bankrupt.* Once more, in 1842, the pro- 
tective policy was adopted ; and production rapidly increased, 
•while the rate of interest fell. It is now (1856) high, because 
production in steadily declining in its ratio to the pojmlotion. 
The facts of the present time, therefore, correspond with those 
observed in 1836, and there is every reason to expect a crisis 
as severe as that which then occurred. f 

§ 2. Money is often spoken of as the exclusive capital; 
and we are told that interest is high because " capital is 
scarce." There would, however, be as much propriety in 
Baying that rents, tolls, or freights, are high because of the 
scarcity of capital. Houses, roads, ships, money, equally con- 
stitute portions of the capital of a community. Interest i? 
always high when this last, from whatsoever cause, is scarce ; 
and the high price then paid for its use constitutes a deduc- 
tion from the rents of the first, and freights of the others. The 
owner of money then profits at the expense of all other capi- 
talists. Interest is the compensation paid for the use of- the 
instrument called money, a7id for that alone. In countries 
in which that is high, the rate of profit is necessarily so. 
because the charge for the use of his money enters so largely 
into the trader's profits. 

The mistake of confounding money with capital appears in 
a recent work by a leading French economist, w-ho regards it 
as an error to say that " money is plenty, or money is scarce, 
to indicate the state of things that exists when the artisan 
seeking for capital obtains it with facility or finds it difiicuit 
to be obtained." In his opinion, the English expression, 
"money market," should be changed to "capital market;" 
and when the farmer complains that "money is scarce," he 

* In the closing years of the protective policy of 1828, the Federal 
government paid oflF a large amount of debt bearing interest at three 
per cent. In the free-trade period of 1S41-2, it was totally unable 
to borrow money even at six per cent. 

t This prediction was realized in the following year, 1867. 
26 



302 CHAPTER XXV. § 3. 

regards bim as being "the dupe of a metapbor, in virtue of 
whicb, in ordinary speech, capital is termed money, because 
money is the measure of capital."* 

The error would seera here to be on the side of the econo- 
mist, and not on that of the farmer, whose daily experience 
teaches him that when money circulates freely, he is pros- 
perous, and that when it is scarce his prosperity disappears. 
It is not capital that is then needed, but money, and that 
alone. The capital of the United States, in houses, factories, 
mines, ships, and other property, lias (1856) within ten 
years increased by thousands of millions, yet are there on all 
sides visible roads half finished, laborers unemployed, mills 
stopped, and men of business compelled to curtail their opera- 
tions. Why ? Because the drain of money has produced an 
extreme sluggishness of the societary motion. Were it pos- 
sible now to announce, that by reason of a change of policy 
the export of gold would henceforth cease and the produce 
of California be here retained, money would at once become 
abundant and cheap, circulation would recommence, and 
prosperity would reign throughout the land ; and yet, the 
difference in the ensuing year in the quantity of the ma- 
chinery of circulation, would not amount to a fourth of one 
2)er cent, of the value of the land, and labor, and other capital 
of the country. 

§ 8. It is not, however, in the quantity of money held by a 
country that we are to find the test of its prosperit}', but in 
the rapidity of its circulation. The gold held by the banks, 
the people, and the government of these United States, is 
said to exceed by $100,000,000 what was held a few years 
since ; but, there being no regularity in the societary motion, 
credit is much impaired, circulation is sluggish, and interest 
is high. The monied capitalist profits by this, but it is the 
cause of ruin to the cloth-maker and the miner. 

France has a large stock of the precious metals ; but fre- 
quent revolutions have so impaired confidence that much of 
it is hoarded, and performs no part of the societary service. 
The rate of interest is therefore high, while wages are low 
because of frequent intermissions in the demand for labor. 
The manner in which all this would be terminated by a small 
increase of the machinery of circulation is thus shown by a 
distinguished French economist in the following passage : — 

* Chevalier : De la Monnaie. p. 380. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 303 

" On one side we sec a machinist, a blacksmith, and a 
wheel wriglit, whose shops are closed, not because of any 
want of raw materials, but because of the absence of demand 
for their products. Elsewhere are manufacturers in want of 
machinery, and farmers in_ need of agricultural implements. 
Why do not the latter give to the former the orders for want 
of vvhich they continue idle ? Because. they must be paid in 
money, which the otiiers have not to give ; and yet they have, 
in shops or burns, abundance of commodities that they desire 
to sell, and by the possession of which many of their neigh- 
burs would be greatly served. Why do they not exchange ? 
Because, direct exchange being impossible; they must begin 
by selling, and as they, in their turn, must demand money, 
they cannot find purchasers. Here we have a suspension of 
labor on both sides; and in cases like this, pioduction is 
languid and society vegetates, though surrounded by all tlie 
elements of activity and pros])erity. Means might, liowever, 
be found for removing tliis difficulty. If the machinist, tiie 
blacksmith, and the wheelwrigiit, refuse to deliver their pro- 
ducts except for ready money, it is not because they entertain 
any doubt of tlie future solvency of the farmer or the manu- 
facturer ; but because it is not convenient to them to make 
credit sales that would diminish their active capital, and per- 
haps prevent them from continuing their operations. Let 
each one, then, in delivering his articles, as he has confidence 
in the future ability of those who now demand them, require 
only, in place of money, a note that he can use in his turn 
with those who furnish him. On this condition, circula- 
tion will be re-established, and labor resumed. True, but we 
must first be sure that these notes, when accepted, will be 
received elsewhere, or otherwise it becomes at once a simple 
sale on credit. This certainty, however, cannot be obtained, 
therefore they refuse the notes ; not because of any suspicion 
of their ultimate value, but because of doubts of the possi- 
bility of disposing of tliem. At this moment, a bank inter- 
venes, and says : — ' You, machinist, deliver your machinery : 
you, blacksmith, your instruments; you, ploughman, your 
raw materials; you, manufacturer, your manufactures; ac- 
cept freely notes payable at a future time, provided you have 
confidence in the goodness of those who will then become 
your debtors. I will take charge of all those notes, and hold 
them until they shall become due, giving you in exchange 
other notes, issued l)y me, that you will be certain to find of 
universal acceptation.' Forthwith all difficulty is at end; 



304 CHAPTER XXV. § 4. 

sales are made, goods circulate, and production btcuii/tw 
animated. There are no longer raw materials, instruments, 
nor products of any description, remaining, even for a moment, 
unemployed."* 

There is here no change whatsoever in the quantity of capital 
owned by the community ; and yet its members are seen 
passing at once from a state of inactivity to one of produc- 
tiveness. But what was it that gave value to these notes, 
making them circulate so much more freely than those of the 
blacksmith and the farmer ? It was the confidence that 
existed in the community that behind them stood a pile of 
money aufficient to redeem each, and every one of them, when- 
soever and by whomsoever presented. Without that belief 
they could not have circulated, as would soon be seen were 
there established a drain of gold, producing a steady diminu- 
tion of the quantity in the bank, until even a single one of 
the notes failed to be paid on presentation. Instantly their 
circulation would be stopped, suspension of movement would 
again take place, and the exchanges they had facilitated would 
be at an end. Money is to society what fuel is to the locomo- 
tive and food to the man: the cause of motion, whence results 
p)Ower. Withdrawal of food from the man is followed by 
paralysis and death ; and such is, precisely, the eifect of a 
failure of the necessary supply of the machinery of cir- 
culation. 

When, therefore, men complain that money is scarce, they 
are right ; it is money that is needed. Money is capital, but 
capital is not necessarily money ; and there is strict propriety 
in the use of the term " money market" in preference to that 
of " capital market," which it is proposed to substitute for it. 

§ 4. With increase in the supply of money, there is a steady 
tendency towards an equalization of the price paid for the 
services of this great instrument of association. When money 
Is scarce, the rich man borrows at ten or twelve per cent., 
while the small manufacturer can scarcely do so at any price : 
so soon as it becomes abundant, the prices charged for its use 
tend towards a level — the small operator of good character 
obtaining loans at nearly as low a rate as his opulent 
neighbor. 

With increase of the supply of money, there is, too, a 
diminution of the burden imposed by pre-existing capital. 

* CoQUELiN : Du Credit, et des Banquet. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 305 

Mortgages become more oppressive as money becomes scarce ; 
but as the supply increases, there is a diminution of tlie 
weighty of the mortgage, both as regards the interest and the 
repayment of the capital. In the former case, if the move- 
ment be long continued, it results in the forced sale of the 
(Micumbered property, as has been seen in this couiitr\^ at the 
close of every free-trade period, and as is now to be seen in 
every one that fails to appreciate the great fact that the raising 
of raw produce for the supply of distant markets is the propci 
work of the slave and the barbarian. The rich are thus made 
richer, but tiie poor are ruined. 

Again, with every increase in the abundance of money, 
taxes become less oppressive to those who pay, and less bene- 
ficial to those who receive them, except in so far as the con- 
sequent reduction in the prices of finished commodities makes 
amends for diminution in the quantity of money received. 

§ 5. The strength of a nation grows with that decline in the 
rate of interest which is always a consequence of that influx 
of the precious metals, and that increase of their utility whicii 
is observed in all those countries which place the con- 
sumer by the side of the producer. In such countries credit 
grows, commerce becomes rapid, mind is developed, land 
acquires value, and man becomes more civilized, more happy, 
and more free. 

The strength of a nation declines v>'ith the increase in the 
rate of interest resulting from the effiux of the precious 
xuetals, or from diminution of the rapidity of their passage 
from hand to hand. This takes place in all those nations in 
which the tendency towards exportation of their produce in 
its rudest form is a growing one. In all such, credit declines, 
commerce decays, the societary circulation becomes more 
sluggish, and man becomes more and more the slave of nature 
and of his fellow-man. 

Of all the machinery in use among men, there is none who-;e 
yield is so great in proportion to its cost as tiiat employed in 
effecting exchanges from hand to hand, none whose move- 
ments are so strong an evidence of increase or decrease of the 
productive power of the community, — none, therefore, that 
allurds the statesman so excellent a barometer by which to 
judge of the working of his measures. It is, nevertheless, 
the one whose movements are generally regarded by modern 
economists as being least worthy of their consideration. All 
their teachings on this subject are in direct opposition to the 



306 CHAPTER XXV. § 4. 

common sense of mankind ; and, as is usually the case, that 
to which men are prompted by a sense of their own interests, 
is far more nearly right than that which is taught by philos- 
ophers who look inward to their own minds for the laws 
which govern man and matter — refusing to study the move- 
ments of the people by whom they are surrounded. 

The uninstructed savage finds in the waterspout and the 
earthquake the most conclusive proof of the wonderful power 
of nature. The man of science finds it in the magnificent, 
but unseen, machinery by means of which the waters of the 
ocean are daily raised, to descend again in refreshing dews 
and summer showers. He finds it, too, in that insensible 
perspiration which carries off so nearly the whole amount of 
food absorbed by men and animals. Again, he sees it in the 
workings of the little animals, invisible to the naked eye, to 
whom we are indebted for the creation of islands elaborated 
out of earth that has been carried from the mountains to the 
sea, and there deposited. Studying these facts, he is led to 
the conclusion, that it is in the minute and almost insensible 
opei'ation of the physical laws he is to find the highest proof 
of the power of nature, and the largest amount of force. So, 
too, is it in the social world. To the uninstructed savage, 
the ship presents most forcibly the idea of commerce. The 
mere trader finds it in the transport of large cargoes composed 
of cotton, wheat, or lumber ; and in the making of bills of 
exchange for tens of thousands of dollars, or of pounds. The 
student of social science, on the contrary, sees it in the 
exercise of a power of association and combination result- 
mg from development of the various human faculties, and 
enabling each and every member of society to exchange his 
days, his hours, and his minutes, for commodities and things 
to whose production have been applied the days, the hours, 
and the minutes of the various persons with whom he is 
associated. For that commerce pence, sixpences, and shil- 
'lings are required ; and in them he finds willing slaves, 
whose operation bears to those of the ship the same relation 
that is elsewhere borne by the little coral insect to the 
elephant. 

It is by means of combination of effort that man advances 
in civilization. Association brings into activity all the 
various powers, mental and physical, of the beings of whom 
society is composed, and individuality thus grows with the 
growth of the power of combination. That power it is which 
enables the many who are poor and weak to triumph over 



OF THE INSTllUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 307 

tlie few who ai'e rich and strong ; and therefore do men be- 
come more free with every advance in wealth and population. 
To enable tliem to associate there is required an instrument 
by help of which the process of composition, decomposition, 
and recomposition, of the various forces may readily be 
eii'ected ; so that while ail unite to produce the effect desired, 
each ma-Y have his share of the benefits thence resulting. 
That instrument was furnished in those metals which stand 
almost alone in the fact, that, as Minerva sprang fully armed 
from the head of Jove, they, wherever found, come forth 
ready, requiring no elaboration, no alteration to fit them for 
the great work for which they were intended, that of enabling 
men to combine their efforts for fitting themselves worthily 
to fill the post at the head of creation for which they had been 
designed. Of all the instruments at the command of man, 
tliere are none that tend, in so large a degree, to promote in- 
dividuality on the one hand, and association on the other, as 
do gold and silver — properly, therefore, denominated the 

PllECIOUS METALS.* 

* Recent American experience furnislies, as we think, proof con- 
clusive of tlie accuracy of Mr. Cart^y's views above presented. Not- 
witlistamling the gigantic character of the existing civil war, tlie 
rate of interest is low, the societary circulation is great beyond all 
precedent, the people are, to an extent never before known, free 
fiom debt, and the reward of labor is large. Why is it so ? Because, 
for the first time in its history the country has been supplied with 
machinery of circulation in quantity adequate to the performance 
of the work tliat needed to be done. The government has furnished 
this, and the people pay for the use of this machinery precisely as 
Uiey would do were it composed of the precious metals; doing so 
for the reason that all have perfect confidence in the responsibility 
of the party by whom it has been supplied. 



308 CHAPTER XXVI. § 1. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

IV. — Of the Trade in Money. 

§ 1. The precious metals the only commodities of universal acceptance, being the iudiH> 
pensable instruments of commerce. 

§ 2. Proportion borne by money to the amount of commerce increases in declining coun- 
tries and decreases in advancing ones. 

g 3. Centralization, retarding the societary motion, increases that proportion. Decentral- 
ization diminishes it. Man then becomes more valuable and more free. 

g 4. Money being the one indispensable inbtrument of society, governments have always 
assumed to control its management, as supplying the most productive of all the ma- 
chinery of taxation, i'alsification of money by European sovereigns. 

g 5. Banks established with a view to the emancipation of the currency from the control 
of governments. Deposit banks of Italy, Germany, and Holland. Institution of banks 
of discount. 

g 6. Enlargement of the operations of discount banks. 

g 7. Banks of circulation commence with the Bank of England. 

g 8. How the expansions and contractions of banks aflect the societary movement. 

^ 9. Great power of banks fur good or evil. Banking monopolies, like those of France and 
England, give to a few iikdividuals a power over the societary movement comnai-ed with 
which that exercised by the sovereigns of old sinks into insignificance. 

§ 1. The single commodity that is of universal demand is 
money. Go where we may, we find hosts of people seeking 
commodities required for the satisfaction of their wants, yet 
widely differing in the nature of their demands. One needs 
food ; a second, clothing ; a third, books, newspapers, silks, 
houses, cattle, horses, or ships. Many desire food, yet while 
one would have fish, another rejects the fish and seeks for 
meat. Offer clothing to him who sought for ships, and he 
would prove to have been supplied. Place before the seeker 
after silks the finest lot of cattle, and he could not be induced 
to purchase. Among all of these, nevertheless, thei'e would 
not be found even a single one unwilling to give labor, skill, 
bonds, lands, horses, or whatsoever other commodity might be 
within his reach, in exchange for money — provided, only, that 
the quantity offered in exchange w^ere deemed sufficient. 

So, again, if we look throughout the world. The poor 
African searches anxiously in the sands for gold, while the 
yet poorer Lapp and the wretched Patagonian — almost the 
antipodes of each other — are alike in the fact, that they are 
ready, at any moment, to exchange their labor and its pro- 
ducts for either of the precious metals. So, too, has it been 
in every age. The Midianite merchants paid for Joseph with 



OF THE INSTRLMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 309 

SO many pieces of silver. Rome was sold to Brennus for 
gold. That of Macedon bought the services of Demosthenes ; 
and it was thirty pieces of silver that paid for the treason of 
Judas. Sovereigns in the East heap up gold as provision 
against future accidents, and iinance ministers in the AVest 
rejoice when their accounts enable them to exhibit a full sup- 
ply of the precious metals. When it is otherwise — when, 
because of war, or of other circumstances, the revenue proves 
deficient — the highest dignitaries are seen paying obsequious 
court to the controllers of the supply of money. So, too, 
when roads are to be made, or steamers built. Farmers, con- 
tractors, and stock-holders, then go, cap in hand, to the 
Croesuses of the great cities, anxious to obtain a favorable 
hearing, and desiring to propitiate the men of power by mak- 
ing whatsoever sacrifice may seem to be required. 

Of all the materials of which the earth is composed, there 
are none so universally acceptable as gold and silver. Why 
should it be so ? Because of their having distinctive qualities 
that bring them into direct connection with the distinctive 
qualities of man — facilitating the growth of association, and 
promoting the development of individuality. They are the 
indispensable instruments of society, or commerce. There- 
fore it is, that we see them to have been seized upon by the 
class that lives by virtue of the exercise of their powers of 
appropriation, as furnishing the most efficient of all the ma- 
chinery of taxation. 

§ 2. In the infancy of society, when poor and scattered 
men are compelled to limit themselves to the cultivation of 
the least fruitful soils, the quantity of money in use, trivial as 
it is, bears a large p?-oportion to the commerce that is main- 
tained. Among the Altai mountains, an ounce of silver 
purchases 250 pounds of beef, while on the Pampas of 
Buenos Ayres a pound of gold exchanges for horses that 
count by thousands. The recipients of these precious metals 
wrap them up with care, hoping never to have occasion to 
cause them again to see the light. In such cases, the utility 
of money is very small, but its value is very great. Willi 
increase in the power of association the former rises, but the 
latter falls; and with every stage of progress the quantity 
of money bears a diminishing p?'opoi-lion to the exchanges 
performed, as is proved by comparing the amount used in 
the great centres of trade for effecting operations that count 
by almost hundreds of millions daily, with that required in 



31 01 CHAPTER XXVI. § 4. 

India or Peru, where, society being torpid, eacli exchange 
must be accompanied by delivery of the coin needed for its 
accompHshment. Here, as everywhere throughout nature, 
increase in the rapidity of motion is attended by decline in 
the proportion borne by the material that is used to the eifect 
that is produced. 

§ 3. Centralization, whether political or trading, tends to 
retard motion and thus to increase the quantity of money 
required for carrying on any given amount of commerce. 
The heavier the taxation the larger will be the quantity of 
coin ahvays on the road to the treasury, and the longer the 
time that must elapse before, if ever, it returns to the place 
whence it had been sent. The greater the distance between 
the farmer and the artisan the heavier are the charges, the 
slower are the exchanges, and the greater the need of the 
banker's services. Every increase of taxation, and every 
increase in the necessity for transportation, tends, therefore, 
to diminish the power to cultivate the richer soils, while in- 
creasing the proportion borne b}^ money to the amount of 
commerce. 

Decentralization, or the establishment of local centres of 
action, tends, on the contrary, to increase the amount of 
commerce while diminishing the quantity of money required, 
and to diminish its value while increasing its utility. With 
every step in this direction there is an increasing tendency 
to steadiness in the value of the precious metals. The fluc- 
tuations of new settlements are, as is well known, exceedingly 
great. At one moment, money may be hired at 8 or 10 per 
cent.; at the next it commands 40, 50, or 60 per cent. At 
the one, produce is high in price ; at the other, it falls so 
low that the farmer and planter find themselves reduced to 
bankruptcy. 

§ 4. The tendency of gold and silver towards steadiness in 
value constitutes their principal recommendation for use as 
standards with which other commodities may be compared ; 
and were the trade in money free from interference, they 
would be almost as perfect in that respect as are the yard- 
stick and the bushel as measures of length and of capacity. 
The corn and sugar in market in any year being consumed 
within the year, a failure of crop may make a change of even 
a hundred per cent, in the price ; wbereas, the quantity of 
gold and silver always in market being hundreds of times 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 311 

more than is required for a year's consumption, a total failure 
of the year's crop should not affect it even to the extent of 
one per cent. So numerous, however, have been the inter- 
ferences with the commerce in money, that of all things it is 
the most subject to sudden variations. It is a yardstick of 
perpetually changing length — a gallon that contains some- 
times three quarts, and at others, six or eight. Why this is 
bO, we may now inquire. 

Centralization giving power to the class that lives by ap- 
jiropriation, the soldier and the trader, every increase therein 
produces a demand for increased taxation, and the subjects 
selected are always tho.se of positive necessity, such as salt 
and sugar. There being none, however, so indispensable as 
money, it is for that reason that we find its management to 
have been so universally assumed by governments, to be ex- 
ercised for public or private profit. 

With the growing centralization of power in the State of 
Athens we mark a constant increase in the rapacity of money 
dealers. In many of the subject cities the precious metals 
became so scarce as to compel recourse to coins of copper 
and of iron, circulated at rates far exceeding their real value. 
At a later period money almost disappeared, the land being 
then cultivated by slaves, to whom all use of the great instru- 
ment of association was utterly denied. 

As centralization grew in Rome coins were diminished in 
weight, while the charge for the use of money as steadily in- 
creased. That Brutus received four per cent, per month is 
matter of history; but even this must have been thrice 
exceeded in the minor operations of the imperial city. The 
poorer a people the larger is always the rate of interest, and 
therefore it is that we see such colossal fortunes accumulated 
where pauperism most abounds. 

It is, however, in history of a later date that we find this 
system carried to its highest point. Philip the Fair, of 
France, changed the coinage thirteen times in a year, and 
more than a hundred times in the course of his reign. His 
successors followed his example, calling in heavy pieces and 
issuing lighter ones in their stead, and to such extent that at 
the date of the Revolution it required 66 livres to give 
the quantity of silver that had formerly been contained in 
one. France has always been distinguished for the exactions 
of money-dealers ; hence it is that credit has had so slight 
an existence, and that such squalid wretchedness has accom- 
panied so great magnificence. That centralization, splendor. 



812 CHAPTER XXVI. § 5. 

poverty, and weakness, are close companions, is proved bj 
every page of history ; but nowhere is it more fully shown 
than in those which record the histories of France and Spain, 
in which latter fraudulent debasement of the coin was con- 
tinued until so late as 1786. 

Such, too, was the case in Scotland, the present Scottish 
pound repi'esenting but a thirty-sixth part of its original 
weight, owing to long continued falsification of the coin. 

Down to the days of Edward III. the English pound con- 
tained a full pound of silver, of a certain fineness. Incessant 
wars for the pursuit of glory, however, forced that monarch 
to the adoption of frauds similar to those then so common 
beyond the Channel, and the practice continued until the 
pound had lost two-thirds of its weight. The English mon- 
archs, however, less warlike than those of France, were less 
frequently forced to plunder their subjects by tampering with 
the currency ; while these latter, being more free, were less 
disposed to submit to such exactions. 

§ 5. The state of things above described it was that led to 
the formation of the Bank of Amsterdam, the first institution 
of any importance established exclusively for the promotion 
of commerce, its predecessors of Venice and Genoa having 
been chiefly devoted to the management of affairs of state. 
It, on the contrary, looked wholly to the faithful guardianship 
of the moneys deposited with it for safe keeping, guaranteeing 
to its owners that equivalent amounts of coin should always 
be at their command. For the faithful performance of its 
duties the States-General of Holland became security, as a 
consequence of which the bank became at once the centre of 
the moneyed world, and the city in which it was established 
the chief European market for the precious metals. Ham- 
burg, Nuremburg, and Rotterdam, speedily followed the good 
example, thus providing for the countries watered by the 
Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe, places of secure deposit for 
money, and facilities for exchanging it free from the taxation 
of French or German sovereigns. The whole proceeding was 
a measure of resistance to arbitrary power ; and for it the 
world is indebted to the action of small communities in 
which had been largely developed that spirit of association 
which always accompanies diversification of employments and 
increased demand for human service. 

As yet, however, these being simple deposit banks, any 
augmentation of the currency thence resulting was merely 



or TIIK INSTRUMENT OV ASSOCIATION. 313 

that wliicli was consequent on increased security and greater 
facility of transfer. At the ne.\t stage, however, we meet 
witii banks of discount. To understand the effect of this 
upon the currency, let us suppose all the owners of the 
money in the vaults to have had the will to use it profitably 
to themselves, and with this view to have accepted certificates 
of stock — being thus at once changed from mere creditors of 
the institution into actual proprietors of it. The instant 
effect of this would be that of diminishing the currency by 
the whole amount of capital, as all the depositors would have 
parted with the power to transfer their money, or to use it 
themselves in any manner whatsoever. The bank, however, 
having acquired all the power they had lost, the volume of 
currency would be restored so soon as it had accepted from 
other persons their notes or bills to an equal amount, in 
exchange for similar sums placed to their credit on its books. 
The apparent amount of currency would no\y be restored, 
but the real one would be materially increased ; and for the 
reason, that the whole had passed into the hands of men of 
business paying interest for its use, and anxious not only to 
earn that interest but also a profit thereon, as compensation 
for their services. Previous to this, much of it must have 
been owned by small and distant capitalists, who, unable to 
judge of the character of the securities in market, preferred 
that it should reman idle in the vaults. They now obtain 
security, each of the managers being required to take his 
share of any loss that may be suffered, and being therefore 
directly interested in seeing the money safely placed. Another 
stage of progress having been thus accomplished, its effects 
soon manifest themselves in the increased utility of money, 
and the diminished rate of interest. 

§ 6. Thus far the bank has traded upon its capital only, 
merely passing to the credit of individuals the gold that had 
been placed by its proprietors in its vaults. Were it to stop 
nere, the dividend on its stock would be less than the ordinary 
fate of interest, its only source of revenue being the discount 
received from tho.se to whom its capital had been loaned, and 
the expense of management being large. Experience, how- 
ever, would soon teach the directors, that although all the 
persons who borrowed their money desired to use it, the 
occasion for so doing did not simultaneously exist; and that, 
in point of fact, although all their capital was drawing 
interest, much of it remained in their vaults entirely unused 
27 



31 1 CHArXER XXVI. § '7. 

This having been observed, tliej^ could scarcely fail further 
to see that they might with perfect safety lend a portion of 
the sura usually in their hands, extending their business to a 
iburth, or a third beyond the actual capital, and thus obtain- 
ing an excess of interest suflRcient for paying the expenses of 
the institution, and providing against losses that might oc- 
casionally be incurred. To their customers this would be 
advantageous, because it would enable the bank to dispense 
ivith the accustomed charge for keeping their money, trans- 
ferring it, or paying it out. To the community it would be 
beneficial, because it would quicken the societary motion and 
(lause a decline in the rate of interest. 

Of what, now, would the currency consist? Every man 
would have it who had money in his desk ; and so, too, would 
every one who had a credit on the books of the bank, the 
power of purchase with the one being as complete as it could 
be with the other. The currency would then consist of the 
money in circulation, and the debts of the bank to its cus- 
tomers, the latter generally known by the name of deposits 
— its amount having been increased by the operation here 
described, to the precise extent that those debts exceeded the 
coin that it had been accustomed to retain in its vaults with 
a view to be prepared for the demands that might be made 
upon it by those to whom it held itself indebted, 

§ 7. The close of the seventeenth century witnessed the 
origin of the most influential moneyed institution the world 
has yet seen, the Bank of England, — authorized to receive 
deposits, make discounts, and issue circulating notes by means 
of which the property of individuals in its hands could be 
at once transferred. Here was a further improvement, tend- 
ing to increase the utility of money and lessen the rate of 
interest. Scarcely yet established, however, we find its pro- 
prietors obtaining the enactment of a law by which it was 
provided, that all who desired to place their money on deposit 
should be limited to a choice between mere private individuals 
on the one hand, and their own great bank on the other. 
Centralization being thus established in regard to the trade 
in money, as it had already been in reference to so much 
of the foreign trade, a single corporation now assumed 
the entire control of a currency that was to be managed 
for the benefit ef the few persons who were interested in its 
stock. 

The larger the amount of its debts, the greater being its 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION 315 

power to make loans, and the larg:cr becoming its dividends, 
tliere was thus at onec produced an interest antagonistic to 
that of the society in which it operated. Whatever tended 
to diminish security elsewhere increased the necessity for 
resorting to the one great institution that allowed no interest 
on its debts. Further, whatever lessened the facility of asso- 
ciation also increased the difficulty of finding satisfactoiy 
modes of investment, thus increasing the cpiantity of money 
lying unproductive to its owners, in the vaults of the bank, 
to be used for augmentation of its dividends. If the directors 
willed to use it they could thus augment the volume of the 
currency, having done which they could again withdraw it, 
thus producing those changes with which in modern times we 
have become so well acquainted. 

§ 8. For the benefit of those who have not traced the 
operation of an expansion, it may be proper here to show 
the manner of its action. Let us suppose, fii\st, a state of 
ati'airs in which every thing is at par, money being easily 
obtained for good notes at a fair rate of discount, and for 
mortgages at the usual rate of interest, while those who have 
disposable means can readily obtain good securities that will 
yield them the common rate of profit, the daily supply ot 
money and of securities being precisely equal to each other. 
In this state of affairs the directors of the bank, knowing that 
it would be profitable to increase their investments to the 
extent of another million, purchase that amount of exchequer 
bills, or other securities. At once the equilibrium is disturbed, 
a demand for securities having been produced in excess of 
the ordinary supply. Prices rising, some unfortunate holder 
ie tempted to sell, hoping that there may to-morrow be less 
demand, and that prices will then fall, permitting him to buy 
in again at a lower price. At the close of the day his bills 
or notes have become the property of the bank—he and others 
who have united to furnish the desired million having become 
creditors on its books for the whole amount. His money 
being now uninvested he appears in the niarket next day as 
a purchaser ; but, unfortunately for him, the bank, too, makes 
its appearance again in the same capacity. The first experi- 
ment has been attended with vastly fortunate results, its 
" deposits" having grown with the increase of its investments. 
Success now emboldens it to repeat the operation, and another 
million is purchased, with similar results. The bank obtains 
the bills, and the owners receive credit on its books ; and the 



316 CHAPTER XXVI. § 8. 

more the debts it is thus enabled to contract, the more means 
it supposes itself to have at its command. With the second 
million, prices have further risen ; with a third, they rise still 
higher; and so on, with each successive million. Money 
appears to be superabundant, because the former owners of 
the securities are seeking for profitable investments ; whereas 
the real superabundance consists only in debts incurred by the 
bank. Prices advancing from day to day, and speculation 
being excited by the rapid growth of fortune, new stocks are 
ci'eated for the employment of the apparently great amount 
of uninvested capital. New roads are projected, and vast 
contracts are made, boundless prosperity being full in view. 
Men who should be planting corn are set to breaking up old 
roads that they may be replaced with new ones ; or to build- 
ing palaces for lucky speculators. Imports increase, exports 
decrease, and there arises a demand for gold for exportation. 
Bullion going abroad, the bank is forced to sell securities. 
Prices fall, and trade becomes paralyzed. Roads, half made, 
cannot be now completed. Tens of thousands of people find 
themselves ruined, while the bank, with difficulty escaping 
from the ruin it has made, rejoices at the result of its opera- 
tions, and prepares to repeat them at the first convenient 
opportunity. 

Such is the history of the inflations and consequent crises 
of 1815, '25, '36, '39, and '47, on all of which occasions the 
bank, having manufactured " deposits" by monopolizing se- 
curities, allowed itself to be misled into the belief that the 
increase of its own debts indicated an actual surplus of 
money. Whenever the bank purchases a security — always 
the representative of some already existing investment — the 
seller will certainly desire to place^ the proceeds in some 
new species of investment, no one willingly allowing his 
capital to remain unproductive. If this purchase be made 
with the money of others, the inevitable effect must be to 
raise prices, and stimulate the late owner of the security to 
increased activity in providing for himself a new one. That 
done, he will, either directly or indirectly, demand payment 
in gold, and then the security must be parted with by the 
bank to enable it to provide the means of payment. Prices 
must then fall, because the creditor has been laboring to find 
employment for capital which had no real existence in any 
other form than that of a road, canal, or other public work 
or debt, already created, and not susceptible of being used 
for the formation of other canals or roads ; and thus, while 



OF THE INSTUUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 317 

llie party outside of the bank lias been trying to invest his 
funds, the bank has itself been holding the evidence of their 
having been already invested, and drawing interest for their 
use. A double action has thus been produced ; and inflation 
and speculation, to be followed by panic and ruin, follow 
necessarily in its train. 

§ 9. The above sketch illustrates the effects that must 
inevitably result from granting to private individuals an 
exclusive control of the great instrument of association. 
Tampering with the coin is now greatly censured ; yet are 
its evil eflects utterly insignificant when compared with those 
of the expansions and contractions above referred to. A bank 
is an instrument of great power either for good or evil. 
Well directed, it produces regularity ; but ill-directed, it 
stimulates the gambling propensities of men. That this 
latter is the case has long been seen ; and some economists 
having found its cause in the power to issue circulating 
notes, a remedy has been attempted in the form of restrictions 
thereupon. Instability, however, has grown with restriction, 
as is proved by the experience of Great Britain and the 
United States; the changes in the value of mojiey since the 
passage of Sir Robert Peel's law, and the adoption of General 
Jackson's policy, having been greater than had ever before 
occurred in a time of peace.* 

* "The e¥il of the Bank Act is, that by the provisioijs which it 
makes to arrest an external drain on the Bank, it produces an in- 
ternal one also. In order to prevent the efliu?; of a million or two 
of gold, the Bank, by raising its rate of discount, and curtailing its 
usual advances, gives a shock to credit. And this increasing tight- 
ness of the money-market, joined to tlie spectacle of the Bank 
rapidly approaching the limit at which it must stop discounting 
altogether, tends to suspend the ordinary relations of credit 
throughout the country, producing numerous failures, and ulti- 
mately panic and a run upon the banks. Under the present sys- 
tem, therefore, an external drain inevitably produces an internal drain 
also — which is like lighting a candle at both ends. * * * Since 
J844, there have been lluctnations in the amount, and consequent 
lalterations in the value, of the currency — and variations still more 
striking in the value of loanable capital, as expressed by the rate 
of discount — such as were unknown under the Act of 1819. In 
fact, the Act of 1844 has failed in the object which it was designed 
to achieve, and has su jected the country to new evils, of which its 
framers never dreamt. * * * I^eft free and unfettered in Scotland, 
banking assumed a form as near perfection as could be devised. 
(n England it has been so swaddled and cramped by legislation 
that its natural growth was arrested and all symmetry made unat 



318 CHAPTER XXVI. § 9. 

Such sliould be the case ; and for tlie reason, that the policy 
of both is directly opposed to all that, reasoning a priori, we 
should expect would be true, and to all that, reasoning d pos- 
teriori, we find to have been true. All commodities tend to 
move towards those places at which they are most utilized. 
Here is a simple proposition whose truth is proved by all 
experience. The circulating note gives to its holder a right 
of property in a certain quantity of money lying in the vaults 
of a bank, while placing it in his power to change at will the 
ownership therein, and without the smallest expenditure of 
labor. So is it, too, with the establishment of a place of 
secure deposit for money, tlie property in which can be 
changed by means of checks. The note and the check in- 
crease the utility of the precious metals ; and therefore is it, 
that money tends to flow towards those places at which notes 
and checks are most in use — passing, in America, from the 
Southern and Western States towards the Northern and East- 
ern ones, and from America towards England, the country in 
which the facility of transfer has always been most complete. 

It would be better that the explosive force of gunpowder 
and the mighty power of steam had remained unknown, than 
that their exclusive use should have been secured to any 
nation of the world ; and better, far, would it be that the art 
and mystery of banking had remained unknown, than that its 
powers should longer be monopolized by any particular set 
of men. More than any other, the trade in money requires 
freedom ; yet, more than any other, has it been hedged around 
with restrictions designed for the benefit of a favored few, 
whose movements have always been directed towards giving 
to the accumulations of the past increased control over the 
labors of the present. That way lies barbarism ; and it is 
because English banking tends in that direction that British 
journalists, in common with Carolina owners of negro slaves, 
have been led to find in measures looking to the protection 
of the capitalist against the laborer the surest road to 
civilization. 

tainaWe. First Monopoly, and now Restriction, have exercised 
their baneful influence upon English banking. Both are pernicious 
in principle, injurious to the community, and incompatible with 
the due use and economy of papital. "—^Zactoooc^'s Magazine 
March, 18(54. ' ' 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 319 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

OP THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

Y. — Of Banking in England. 

\ 1. Great power exercised by the Bank of England. 

\ 2. No banking business in England at the date of the Restoration. Under Charles II. 
jewellers become bankers. Consequent increase in the utility of money. Establish- 
ment of the Bank of England. • 

1 3. Movements of the bank from 1797 to 1S15. 

2 4. Change therein, subsequent to the close of the war. Resumption of specie payments. 

Pidductive of wide-spread ruin. Producing classes impoverished, while the merely con- 
suming ones are enriched. 

g 5. Effect of those measures that of giving to the moneyed capitalist increased command 
over land and labor, always an evidence of declining civilization. 

g 6. Constant succession of expansions, contractions, and financial cri-ses, each in succes- 
sion tending to incretise the power of money over land-owner and laborer. 

g 7. Bank Act of Sir Robert Peel. Its object, that of producing steadiness in the monetary 
movement. Its effect, that of increasing the power of the bank to control the societary 
movement. Its total failure. 

2 8. Cause of its failure to be found in the fact that it sought to regulate the currency in 
use, leaving wholly out of view the action of the bank in affecting the currency seek- 
ing to be employed. 

2 9. Currency in use almost a constant quantity. Essential error of the Bank Act. Under 
it monetary changes become more frequent and more severe. 

§ 1. The tendency to stability in the material world is in 
the direct ratio of the approach to the pyramidal form. So, 
too, is it in the trading world — the man whose liabilities are 
small while his capital is large standing secure amid gales 
that wreck by thousands those of his fellow-merchants whose 
operations are based upon the capital of others, and whose 
liabilities bear, therefore, a large proportion to their claims 
upon those with whom they trade. So, also, is it in the 
financial world, the bank which trades chiefly upon its own 
capital passing safely through the storm which wrecks those 
of its neighbors whose debts bear large proportion to their 
credits. 

The New England States present the most remarkable 
cases of banks, such as are first above described. For the 
most striking example of the latter class we must look to 
the Bank of England, based as was that institution upon a 
mere annuity payable by the government, and trading, as it 
has always done, almost entirely on the capital of others, and 
not upon its own. As a consequence of this it is, that the 
course of this great institution has, beyond that uf any otiior 



320 CHAPTER xxvii. § 2. 

ill tLe world, been disticguished by instability and rapidity 
of change. 

To reduce the intrinsic value of a pound from 20s. to 
6s. 8d., by means of governmental action, v^^as a movement 
always in the same direction, all remaining quiet from the 
date of one reduction until another came to be required. 
With the bank it has been very different, money values 
having been raised at one moment and depressed at another, 
to an extent, and with a rapidity, that have defied all calcula- 
tion. In common with all other traders the bank and its 
managers profit by changes, ruinous as they are to all who 
are in any manner dependent upon it for accommodation. 
The interests of the two are therefore not in harmony with 
each other, and yet to the bank has been confided the control 
and direction of that great instrument upon whose proper 
management as entirely depends the continuity and rapidity 
of the societary circulation as does the circulation of the blood 
upon a proper supply of air and food. 

§ 2. " In the reign of William," says Mr. Macaulay, " old 
men were still living who could remember that there was not 
a single banking-house in the city of London. So late as 
the Restoration every trader had his strong box in his own 
house, and, when an acceptance was presented to him, told 
down the crowns and Caroluses on his own counter. But 
the increase of wealth had produced its natural effect, the 
subdivision of labor. Before the end of the reign of Charles II., 
a new ivode of paying and receiving money had come into 
fashion among the merchants of the capital. A class of 
agents arose, whose office was to keep the cash of the com- 
mercial houses. This new branch of business naturally fell 
into the hands of the goldsmiths, who were accustomed to 
traffic largely in the precious metals, and who had vaults in 
which great masses of bullion could lie secure from fire and 
robbers. It was at the shops of the goldsmiths of Lombard 
street that all payments in coin were made. Other traders 
gave and received nothing but paper. 

" This great change did not take place without much op- 
position and clamor. Old-fashioned merchants complained 
bitterly that a class of men who, thirty years before, had con- 
fined themselves to their proper functions, and had made a 
fair profit by embossing silver bowls and chargers, by setting 
jewels for fine ladies, and by selling pistoles and dollars to 
gentlemen setting out for the continent, had become the 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 321 

Ireasurerp, and were fust beeoininp; tlie masters, of the wliolo 
city. These usurers, it was said, played at hazard witli wliat 
had been earned by the industry and hoarded by the tlirift of 
otlier men. If tlie dice turned up well, the knave who ke[»t 
the cash became an alderman : if they turned up ill, the dupe 
who had furnished the cash became a bankrupt. On the 
other side, the conveniences of the modern practice were set 
forth in animated languajj^e. Two clerks, seated in one 
counting-house, did what, under the old svsteni, must have 
been done by twenty clerks in twenty different establish- 
ments. A goldsmith's note might be transferred ten times 
in a morning ; and thus a hundred guineas, locked in his safe 
close to the Exchange, did what would formerly have required 
a thousand guineas, dispersed through many tills, some on 
Ludgate Hill, some in Austin Friars, and some in Tower 
street." 

Money having been thus utilized, and circulation quickened, 
the greater step was soon taken of establishing an institution 
somewhat similar to those existing on the continent. The 
last decade of the eighteenth century witnessed, therefore, 
the creation of the Bank of England, differing from its pre- 
decessors, however, in the fact that, while they had been 
instituted in the public interests alone, with a view to main- 
taining an unvaiying standard with which to compare all other 
commodities, this was a mere trading corporation having for 
its sole object the advantage of those interested in its man- 
agement. The former gave certificates in exchange for the 
gold and silver deposited with them ; and the parties holding 
these certificates felt certain that the metals thus represented 
were actuall}' in their vaults. The quantity of money ap- 
parently at the command of the community, was therefore 
precisely that which was really subject to its orders, no 
diff'erence having been produced by the granting of the cer- 
tificate. The latter, in like manner, gave certificates in 
exchange for the precious metals ; but, instead of retaining 
the coins in its vaults it lent them out again. The powtr 
of the depositor over his money remaining undiminished, 
while a new and additional power had been created, the 
apparent quantity of money in circulation had been there- 
by doubled, while the real one remained unchanged. The 
English system, tending, as it did, to a greater utilization of 
money, was much the more perfect ; more powerful for good, 
it was also greatly more so in the opposite direction. 

At the outset, the bank enjoyed no exclusive privileges. 



322 CHAPTER xxvn. § 3. 

By degrees, however, its nominal capital was enlarged, until, 
in 1708, it had trebled, its influence meanwhile having so 
increased as to enable it to obtain an Act of Parliament pro- 
hibiting the application of the associative principle to the 
trade in money, in any case in which the partners should be 
more than six in number. Power was thus centralized for 
the benefit of a few stockholders ; but to the great loss of the 
English people, who were thus deprived of the right to deter- 
mine their own mode of action in regard to the most impor- 
tant of all the machinery in use among mankind. By means 
of the control of the currency thus secured, the dividends, 
notwithstanding the sinking of its nominal capital in an 
annuity at the rate of three per cent, were gradually carried 
up to no less than ten per cent., the whole dififerenoe being 
obtained by such a use of credit as made the apparent amount 
of money at the command of the community greatly larger 
than was the real one. 

§ 3. Trading thus altogether on its liabilities, and, with the 
exception of its surplus profits, employing no capital of its 
own, the movements of the bank will be made more clear by 
the following sketch of its operations in the last sixty years, 
placing under the head of debt the amount of its circulation 
and of the credits on its books, and opposite thereto the 
quantity of bullion in its vaults, the latter representing the 
whole amount of capital it had borrowed and had not 
lent out. 

At the close of August, 1796, the amount of its debts was 
£15,903,110, all of which, with the exception of £2,122,950, 
had been invested for its own advantage. Soon after, various 
circumstances occurred tending to diminish confidence in the 
Institution, and in the following February, when the stock of 
bullion but little exceeded a million, an Order of Council was 
obtained, authorizing the bank to discontinue payment of its 
debts. Thenceforward, during nearly a quarter of a century, 
its paper constituted the sole legal currency of the country ; 
and how that currency was managed is shown by the follow- 
ing figures : — 

Debts. Bullion. 

August 1797 £18,879,470 £4.089,620 

" 1804 26,869,420 6,879,190 

" 1812 34,875,790 3,099,270 

" 1814 43,218,230 2,097,680 

" 1815 39,944,670 : 3,409,040 

The circulation having, in this last year, amounted t» 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 323 

£26,000,000, it follows, that of the notes and bills then held, 
DO less than £10,000,000 represented the property of indi- 
viduals deposited in its vaults. Charging interest for its use 
while allowing none, the bank was enabled to give to its 
stockholdei's double the usual rate of interest — always a sign 
of error in the system. The real owners felt themselves to 
be as fully possessed of the power of purchase as if they had 
the gold in their hands ; and yet, it was neither in their pos- 
session nor in that of the bank, but in that of a third set of 
persons, to whom the latter had granted the use of it. 
These £10,000,000 had the same effect on prices as if their 
number had been doubled, having become, for the moment, 
to all intents and purposes, £20,000,000. 

§ 4. The year 1815 brought with it the close of the 
great war. Two years later the bullion had increased to 
£11,688,000, while the liabilities had fallen to £38,600,000. 
Its loans of borrowed capital were therefore only £27,000,000, 
or less by £2,000,000 than the amount of its circulation, 
which had increased to £29,000,000. By the very simple 
operation of calling in its claims on the one hand, and reduc- 
ing its liabilities on the other, the apparent quantity of 
money at the command of the community had been reduced 
to the extent of no less than £12,000,000, or little short of 
$60,000,000. So far as regarded the soeietary circulation, 
this was equivalent to the entire annihilation of that large 
sum. As compared with the money value of the property 
of the British people it was utterly insignificant, yet did its 
abstraction cause an arrest of the circulation almost as com- 
plete as would be produced in the physical body by stoppage 
of the supply of food. "Thousands upon thousands," says 
Mr. McCulloch, "who had, in 1812, considered themselves 
affluent, found that they were destitute of all real property ; 
and sunk, as if by enchantment, and without any fault of 
their own, into the abyss of poverty." In the midst of all 
this ruin, however, the bank prospered more than ever, for 
the destruction of private credit rendered its vaults and its 
notes more necessary to the community, none other being 
regarded as entitled to the public confidence. 

The ground-work having thus been laid by the bank. Par- 
liament passed, in 1819, an Act for the resumption of specie 
payments, and thus re-established as the law of the land the 
standard that had been abandoned in 1797 — among the most 
remarkable measures of confiscation to be found in the annals 



324 CHAPTER XXVIl. § 5. 

of legislation. For more than twenty years, all the transac- 
tions of the United Kingdom had been based upon a currency 
less in value than that which previously had existed. In the 
course of that period land had been sold, mortgages granted, 
settlements made, -and other contracts of a permanent nature 
entered into, to the extent of thousands of millions of pounds, 
the terms of all of which were now to be changed for the 
benefit of the receivers of fixed incomes, and to the loss of 
those who had land, labor, or the produce of either, to part 
with. As a consequence, land fell exceedinglj^ in price, and 
mortgagees everywhere entered into possession. Labor be- 
came superabundant, and the laboi'er suffered for want of 
food. Machinery of every kind was thrown idle, and manu- 
facturers were ruined. Manufactures, being in excess of the 
demand, were forced upon foreign mai'kets to the ruin of the 
capitalists and workmen, miners and machinists, of all the 
other countries of the world that had failed to persevere in 
the protective system. 

Peace had thus brought with it wide-spread ruin, but it 
enriched the money-lender, his single commodity rising, while 
land became so cheap that he could purchase at less than half 
the previous price. The annuitant and office-holder profited, 
their dividends and salaries having become payable in coin, 
that would purchase double the quantity of food and clothing 
for which they had at first contracted. Farmers and laborers, 
machinists and merchants, were impoverished, their taxes re- 
maining unchanged, while their labor and its products com- 
manded less than half the money at which they would before 
have sold. 

§ 5. The series of measures above described has been 
greatly lauded by some British writers, and as much con- 
demned by others. Which of these is right the reader will 
decide for himself, after reflecting :: — 

That the progress of man towards civilization \b invariably 
attended by an increase of the power of the labor of the 
present over the accumulations of the past : 

That his progress towards barbarism is in the reverse 
direction ; the capital accumulated in the past then invariably 
obtaining more power over the labor of the present. 

Which of these was the effect produced ? Did the course 
of the government tend to lighten the burden of rent, taxes, 
or interest ? If it did, then did it tend towards civilization. 
That it did not is shown in the facts, that farmers were every- 



OF THE IXSTULMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 325 

wlicve tliroiigliout tlie kingtlom ruined 1)}' demands for the 
enormous rents whose payment had previously been agreed 
for; that the taxes remained unchanged, while the prices of 
food and labor declined ; and that interest upon mortgages 
continued as great, when required to be paid in coin, as when 
it had been contracted for in the days of paper. Hence it 
was, that the return to peace, which should have been iiail( d 
as a blessing, was generally regarded as a curse. 

§ 6. Scarcely had the effect of this destructive measure com- 
menced to pass away, when the bank was found repeating the 
experiment of augmenting the apjyarenl quantity of money, 
andthusshorteningthe standard forthe measurement of values, 
preparatory to a similar return to the real quantity, by whi(;h 
the standard should again be lengthened. With the substitu- 
tion of gold for one-pound notes, and with the gradual re- 
establishment of credit among the country banks, its circula- 
tion had fallen from £29,000,000 in 1817 to £17,000,000 in 
1822. Then commenced a system of expansion by whicli 
that portion of its debts called " deposits" was nearly douliled 
in the period between 1821 and 1824. There was, therefore, 
a general appearance of prosperity ; and this continued until 
the holders of the capital thus rendered unproductive had 
provided for themselves new investments — when, all at once, 
the scene changed, prosperity being succeeded by adversity, 
property falling in value while labor was unemployed, and 
the bank itself being saved from stoppage only by the lucky 
discovery of a parcel of one-pound notes that could be used 
in place of gold. 

A few years later we meet with another repetition of the 
operation, the amount of the bank debts, called deposits, 
being once more doubled in the period between 1832 and 
1835. Now came another crisis, the bank again forcing- 
securities on the market, and thereby destroying the value 
of property to such an extent as to enable it in the following 
year to reduce, by more than £7,000,000, the credits on its 
books. 

Two years later the performance was again repeated. In 
this case but a single year was required for bringing about 
the change, the institution having been saved from bankruptcy 
in October, 1837, only by means of aid granted by the Bank 
of France. Commerce almost ceased, and distress was un - 
versal, but the bank made its usual dividends, and money- 
lenders and annuitants were enriched. Such having been the 
28 



326 CHAPTER XXVII. § 7. 

uniform efl'ect of all its movements, the reader may, as we 
think, find in them a key to those extraordinary changes in 
the ownership of real estate which have resulted in the reduc- 
tion of the number of the landowners to one-sixth of that at 
which it stood in the days of Adam Smith. 

§ Y. The frequency and extraordinary extent of these 
changes aroused a desire to ascertain by what laws, if any 
there were, the movement of the bank was governed ; and a 
commission was instituted which, however, after examining 
numerous witnesses, failed to discover the laws they sought. 
The only conclusions at which it could arrive were, that it 
was administered without reference to any principle whatso- 
ever, that its movements were invariably those of momentary 
expediency, and that the dangers and difficulties which had 
just occurred were likely to be reproduced on the first occa- 
sion. Such having been clearly shown to be the case, it was 
deemed necessary, on the renewal of the charter, to endeavor 
to subject its action to some certain law, thus fitting it to 
become the regulator of that of others. Hence we have now 
the Bank Restriction Act of Sir Robert Peel, of 1844, whose 
name is thus associated with two of the most remarkable 
acts in the history of the British monetary system, neither of 
which, however, can be regai'ded as indicating that he had 
given to the subject the attention demanded by its im- 
portance. 

Less than three years later, in 184*7, came another crisis, 
a spirit of the wildest speculation, promoted by the bank, 
having yielded to an universal panic. Consols declined to 
80, while railroad stocks fell to half their previous value. 
The rate of interest rose to ten percent., the government 
itself being forced to borrow at five for the supply of its daily 
wants. Dealers in corn, cotton, and bullion, were again pros- 
cribed ; and thus were repeated the phenomena of 1816, '25, 
and '37. Deputations from the various cities claimed of the 
Minister a suspension of his law ; assuring him that large 
orders remained unfilled for want of the means required for 
their execution, while operatives, by thousands, were stand- 
ing idle because of inability to sell their labor. The bank 
itself, with bankruptcy staring it in the face, was compelled 
to enlarge its loans when it desired to contract them ; and 
thus was exhibited, for the third time in a single decade, the 
spectacle of a great institution aspiring to regulate the trade 
of the world, yet totally unable to save itself. An order of 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 321 

jouncil finally repealed the law for the time being, tlius fur- 
nishing conclusive evidence of the want of knowledge of the 
persons to whose influence the new system had been due. 

Such is the condition of the people of England under the 
control of its great monopoly institution. They are depen- 
dent on the chance measures of a body of gentlemen no one 
oi whom has ever yet been able to explain the principles by 
which he is governed in the administration of the powerful 
instrument in the management of which he is placed. All 
of them, in their capacity of stockholders and directors, have 
a direct interest in producing changes in the currency ; 
because, by so doing, they lessen public confidence and thus 
increase the necessity for looking to their vaults as the only 
place of secure deposit. 

§ 8. The new system had failed to produce the effect 
desired — having given no steadiness in the supply of money 
or in its value. By some, the fault was found in the law 
itself; but its author, of course, asserted, that if the bank 
had acted " in the spirit of the law of 1844," such difficulties 
could never have occurred. Ready to find the cause in ''the 
extraordinary spirit of speculation," he was well disposed to 
close his eyes to the real cause — the radical defect of his own 
mv^asure, which professed to regulate the action of the great 
machine, but failed to do so. Had it so done, the directors 
would have found themselves compelled to act in accordance 
with both its spirit and its letter, and there could have been 
no such operation as that which had just then been witnessed ; 
the difficulties attendant upon short crops would not have 
bfecn aggravated by the total prostration of trade, the dis- 
charge of workmen, and the impossibility of obtaining wages 
to be used in the purchase, at any price, of the necessaries 
of life. 

The trade in money requires no more law than that in 
shoes. It demands, on the contrary, perfect freedom, being 
so vastly greater in amount that interference to the extent 
of half of one per cent., is productive of more injury than 
could result from an interference that should affect the price 
of shoes to an extent of a hundred per cent. 

Nevertheless, such are the penalties, prohibitions, and lia- 
bilities imposed upon all who desire to associate for the 
purpose of utilizing the precious metals, and so numerous are 
the monopolies invested with the control of the money trade, 
t-hai of all couimodities theirs is the most subject to sudden 



328 CHAPTER, XXVII. § 8. 

alteration in its value. The regulation of the currency ia 
held to be one of the functions of government, because it 
affords the most simple and convenient mode of taxation. 
That of Great Britain has transferred it to the bank, by which 
the duty is so pei'formed that at one time money is cheapened, 
and the State is enabled to reduce the rate of interest on its 
debts ; while at another it becomes dear, and those who have 
accepted new stock in exchange find they have parted with 
a considerable portion of their property, receiving nothing in 
return. Lose who may, however, the stockholders of the 
bank are always secure of receiving large dividends, while its 
directors are ever ready to furnish what they think should be 
received as good and efficient reasons for such destructive 
changes. At one time it is an enormous import of stocks 
from the continent ; at another, the influx of South American 
shares and stocks ; at a third, vast loans to the United 
States ; and at a fourth, a deficiency of crops. Stocks, how- 
ever, would not come if the bank did not paralyze the action 
of the private capitalist by lending out his money and raising 
prices ; and corn might be deficient without producing any 
material change in the value of money except in relation to 
corn itself. 

The true cause of the difficulty is, that the task of regula- 
tion is committed to one great institution, whose movements 
are wholly unregulated. It is a great fly-wheel in the midst 
of a vast number of little wheels, all of which are compelled 
to go faster or slower as the great one may propel. These 
latter are the bankers, merchants, and manufacturers of Great 
Britain, all of whom have, more or less, for half a century 
past, been engaged in studying the law which governs the 
motion of the master wheel, but as yet with such indifferent 
success, that we hazard little in asserting that no man in 
England would commit that law to writing, and stake his 
fortune on proving that it had been operative during any 
single year of the century. In despair of arriving at any 
comprehension of the laws of its action, all resign themselves 
blindly to its influence, joint-stock and. private banks expand- 
ing when- it expands and contracting when it contracts, an 
error of a single million thus producing error to the extent of 
hundreds of millions in the money transactions of the king- 
dom. Hence the necessity for subjecting it to fixed and 
positive rules. 

The currency needs no such regulator ; but if there be one, 
i.s action should be rendered perfectly automatic, leaving it 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 329 

10 the proprietors of the little wheels to use the gearing 
needed for enabling them to obtain as much speed as they 
might require. It should be acted upon by the community, 
instead of acting upon them, and then it might be consulted 
with the same confidence as the thermometer. The law that 
would effect this would not be that of 1844, which, with its 
cumbrous, and really ridiculous, machinery of banking de- 
partment and department of issue, was totally unfitted to 
answer the end proposed. It was framed with a view to 
changes in the amount of circulation, or, currency in use, 
which are ever slow, and small in quantity ; while it con- 
tained no reference to changes in the deposits, or currency 
seeking employment, always rapid and great in amount. 
The one is in constant use among the great body of the 
people, and cannot be materially increased or decreased with- 
out a great change in the state of trade, or in the feelings of 
the community. The other represents unemployed capital, 
the property of the few, liable to increase or decrease with 
every speck that appears in the political or commercial 
horizon. 

§ 9. By the last charter, a sovereign, or, to a certain extent, 
its equivalent in silver, is required to lie in the vaults of the 
bajik for every pound of its notes in the hands of the public, 
beyond £14,000,000. The circulation being an almost con- 
stant quantity, amounting to £20,000,000, £6,000,000 of 
bullion must, therefore, remain in the bank, not to be used 
under any circumstances whatsoever ; and as useless to the 
community, while so remaining, as would be an equal weight 
of pebble-stones. How far the circulation can, as a rule, 
claim to be treated as a constant quantity, the reader may 
determine after examining the following table, in which is 
given that of the bank for the years from 1832 to 1840 : — 

18.32 £18,449,000 1837 £18..3fi5.000 

lt<33 17,912,000 1838 18,872,0(10 

1834 18.007,1100 1839 18,32«,000 

1835 18,507.000 1840 16,818,000 

1836 17,985,000 

The year 1840 was one of utter prostration. In that and 
the following year commerce was at an end, so far as the ruin 
of the customers of England, abroad and at home, consequent 
upon the extraordinary movements of the bank, could accom- 
jtlish its extinction. Nevertheless, under these most untoward 
circumstances, the circulation remained above £10,000,000 ; 



330 CHAPTER XXVII. § 9. 

and we now find it gradually attaining a point liiglicr tlian 
it bad reached in many years : — 

1841 £16,533,700 1845 £20,099,000 

1842 16,952,000 1846 19,865.000 

1843 20.239.000 1847 19,854,000 

1844 21,246,000 

In the first period, embracing the nine years from 1832 to 
1840, both inclusive — and including the crisis of 1836-T — the 
variation above and below the medium of £18,500,000, is 
under three per cent. In the second, the circulation attains 
a higher point than in the first. Private and joint-stock 
banks having been ruined by the extraordinary revulsion of 
1839, and confidence in their notes having been impaired, the 
bank now profits by the ruin of which it has been itself 
the cause. The total circulation of the kingdom remained 
almost entirely unchanged. 

Such being the facts, it would seem to be quite clear that 
the difficulty of the English monetary system finds its cause 
in the bank monopoly, and not in that paper circulation by 
means of which the precious metals are so greatly utilized, 
and the societary circulation so much promoted. Failing to 
see this, Sir Robert Peel enlarged the former while greatly 
restricting the latter, and the consequences now exhibit 
themselves in the fact that, notwithstanding the great increase 
in the supply of these metals, the changes of the British 
niuney market became more frequent, while the range of the 
vibration has been much enlarged. 

Under this most unstable system the annual losses by 
failures are stated at the enormous sum of £50,000,000. 
Great as it is, it is yet trivial when compared with the loss 
inflicted upon foreign nations by the unceasing changes to 
which they are subjected. The crash of 1815, and those of 
1825, 1836, 1839, and 184Y, had there their origin ; and their 
•effect was that of injuring the farmers and planters of the 
world to the extent of thousands of millions of pounds. Of 
all the monetary institutions that now exist, that of England 
contains within itself least of the elements required for the 
production of stability and regularity ; and therefore it is, 
that nations prosper least whose dependence upon it is 
greatest. Trading centralization, nevertheless, seeks, by 
means of British free trade measures, to render the English 
currency — ever varying as it is — the measure of values for 
the world at laro^e. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 331 

CHAPTER XXYIII. 

OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

TI. — Of Banking in France. 

1 1. Taxation of the French people by mwins of regulation of the currency. 

I 2. Private banks established at the close of the Revolution. Consolidated in the Bank 
of France. Monopoly powers of that institution. Directly interested in producing 
changes in the currency. 

I 3. Steadiness in the amount of currency in use. Financial crises have their origin iu 
changes in tLe amount of currency unemployed. 

§ 4. Tliose changes due to the irregularity in the movements of the one great bank. Their 
result seen in the augmentation of its tlividends. 

I 5. Political and monetary centralizatim tends to enfeeble the societary action and to 
diminish the •imouiit of commerce. Counteracted, in some degree, by the maintenance 
of a policy having for its object the emancipation of the land from the ta.x of trans- 
portation. 

§ 1. In the natural woi'ld the real power exerted is alwfivs 
in the inverse ratio of the apparent one — the rumbling- earth- 
quake limitinp: itself to the shattering of city walls, while the 
silent frost, hy disintegrating rocks and levelling hills, is 
enabled to supply to a microscopic world the material by 
means of which to build up islands, out of which, eventually, 
continents will probably be formed. So, too, is it in the 
moneyed world, the skilful financier always finding his most 
productive taxes in those exchanges for whose performance 
pence and halfpence are required, and not in those which 
need the aid of gold. Tobacco, salt, and beer, therefore, pay 
heavily, while silks and velvets, pearls and diamonds, con- 
tril)ute little to any public revenue. Chief, however, among 
the subjects of taxation, is the instrument which enters into 
all exchanges — money. Tlie laborer needs its aid when he 
requires salt, tobacco, beer, or cloth. The capitalist must 
have it if he would add to his lands, and without it the 
woman of fashion would be compelled to forego the indulgence 
of her tastes. Nowhere has this been more thoroughly under- 
stood than in France. Nowhere has the policy of a country 
more tended to the expulsion of the precious metals than was 
there the case throughout those dreary centuries winch inter- 
vened between the accession of the House of Valois and that 
of the Bourljons. Nowhere, consequently, has centralization 
been more complete, the poverty of the government more uni- 
form, or its necessities more urgent. Nowhere, therefore, 



332 CHAriER XXVIII. § 2. 

has the fraud involved in the falsification of the coin oi the 
realm been more systematically or more enduringly practised 
. — the last appearance of such frauds being found in the 
reign of Louis XVI. Scarcely, however, had it disappeared 
from the proceedings of the mint, before we meet with it in 
another form, that of the assignats, or paper money of the 
Revolution — so freely issued that they gradually declined in 
value until the sum of six hundred francs, or the equivalent 
of more than a hundred dollars, would pay for only a single 
pound, of butter. 

Of all the instruments of taxation, that afforded by the 
regulation of the currency is the most searching in its effects 
— the most productive in time of need — the most demoraliz- 
ing in its action — and the most ruinous in the end. By 
means of the assignats it was, that the early revolutionary 
government of France was enabled to collect the taxes by 
help of which its armies repelled the invasion of lt92. By 
Biniilar means it has been, that the Austrian government has 
added hundreds of millions to its revenue during the present 
century — calling in depreciated paper money and replacing it 
with that which was promised to be good, and then repeating 
the operation so many times, that the original holder of dol- 
lars now holds little more than pence. 

§ 2. With the growth of wealth and population power over 
the currency has passed gradually from the hands of govern- 
ment to those of traders in money, seeking to exercise it for 
their own benefit, and that of those with whom they are con- 
nected. So has it been in England, and so is it now in 
Prance. 

At the close of the Revolution, credit having no existence, 
money was scarce, and the rate of interest was very high. 
This, of course, furnished strong inducement for the opening 
of shops at which money could be bought and sold ; or, in 
other words, banks. Several were, therefore, opened ; and 
had the government abstained from interference, no doubt 
can now be entertained that competition among themselves 
would gradually have furnished a remedy for the then exist- 
ing monetary evils. Napoleon had, however, a strong belief 
in the necessity for the maintenance and extension of that 
same centralization to which his predecessor had owed the for- 
feiture of his throne ; and it furnishes, therefore, no cause for 
surprise, that we find him in 1804 decreeing their consolida- 
tion into the single Bank of France, and securing to that 



OF THE INSTRUMKNT OK ASSOCIATION. 333 

institution a monopoly of the power of issuing circulating 
notos. The soldier and the trader are thus ever found in 
close alliance with each other, both seeking to be enriched 
at the expense of commerce. Scarcely, however, had the 
alliance been completed, when it proved that the former had 
used the latter for his own purposes alone, the bank having 
little more than come into existence before it was required 
to grant to the State so large a portion of its capital as to 
involve it in ditiiculty so serious as to render necessary a 
total change of system. Then (180G) came the definitive 
organization of the institution on the footing it now maintains, 
with a capital of 90,000,000 francs, or about $17,000,000. 

While tiius centralizing the monetary power in the capital, 
the government retained the right of authorizing the creation 
of local banks, and thus producing counter-attraction among 
the provinces. So little, however, was this power exercised, 
that the ensuing forty 3'ears witnessed the formation of only 
ten such institutions ; all of them, too, of a character so 
entirely insignificant, that their joint capital was but 24,000,000 
francs=$4,500,000 — and the whole amount of their loans less 
than 80,000,000=115,000,000. Such was the machinery of 
exchange provided for a country with a population far 
more numerous than that of either Great Britain or the 
United States. 

"There is not, probably," says M. Coquelin. in his excel- 
lent little work, Du Credit et dfs Banques, " a single town of 
any consideration in France that has not, at one time or an- 
other, desired to have a l)ank. To compreiiend why the}' have 
found themselves compelled to rest content, deprived of the 
advantage of such institutions, it is required only that the 
I'eader should understand the endless and inextricable formal- 
ities through which it is required to pass — the obstacles that 
are to be overcome — the measures to be pursued — the dela\^s 
that are to be submitted to — before such a privilege is 
granted. To obtain an authorization to establish a bank 
was, even for the largest and best-situated towns or cities, a 
Herculean labor. Except the two or three dc^partmental 
banks formed spontaneously at the close of the Revolution, 
like those of Rouen and Bordeaux,- all the others were founded 
only after laborious effort and long and expensive proceed- 
ings, well calculated to produce disgust among others who 
might have felt dispo.sed to look in the same direction. 1 
may, for example, cite the Bank of Toulouse, which was 
established after years of solicitations, in which were united 



334 CHAPTER XXVIII. § 3. 

the council-general of the department, the municipal authori- 
ties of the city, and most of the distinguished men of the 
country ; all of whom were compelled to harass the Minister 
and the Council of State, and that, too, for a series of years, 
before they could obtain that most simple thing, the for- 
mation of a banking company with a capital of 1,200,000 
francs=$240,000. The city of Dijon, after similar efforts, 
was compelled, by the resistance it encountered, to abandon 
the idea." 

§ 3. The power of the bank was to be derived, first, from 
the exclusive privilege accorded to it of furnishing circula- 
tion ; or, second, from its capacity to afford to the owners of 
mone}' a place of secure deposit. Credit being almost extinct, 
and its notes being of large amount — 500 francs — little was, 
in the outset, to be expected from the first. That very 
little was thence obtained is proved by the facts, that in the 
first two years the circulation fluctuated between 10,000,000 
and 45,000,000 francs ; and that, in the first year of the final 
establishment of the bank as now constituted, (1806,) it rose 
to t6,000,000 and fell to 54,000.000, while in the following 
year it ranged between U.OOO.OOO and 101,000,000. The 
period was one of great disturbance in the political world, 
not well calculated for producing confidence in the minds of 
those who had seen cartloads of assignats whose value was 
but little greater than that of the paper that had been used to 
print them. Under tlie government of the Restoration, how- 
ever, there came a change. Peace prevailing at home and 
abroad, there gradually arose a feeling of confidence, mani- 
festing itself in the gradual increase of circulation, that is 
here exhibited : — 

Maximum. Minimum. Mean. 

1819.... 135,000,000 79,000,000 107,000,000 

1.S20 172,000,000 122,000,000 147.000.000 

18H3 228.000,000 193,000,000 210.600,000 

1834 222,000,000 192,000,000 207,000,000 

1843 247,000,000 216,000,000 231,600,000 

1845 289,000,000 247,000,000 268,000,000 

1846 311,000,000 243,000,000 277,000,000 

Steadiness is here shown to grow with the growing utiliza- 
tion of money that has been accomplished by means of circu 
l?ting notes. In the first of the above periods, the minimum 
o^ 1819 is less than half the maximum of the following year, 
li the second, the variation is less than a sixth. The third 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 335 

embraces four years, in the closinp; montlis of wliii-h com- 
menced a crisis of intensity so fearful tliat it was with diffi- 
culty the bank could weather the storm ; and yet, at the 
moment of severest pressure, the amount of circulation re- 
mained almost precisely where it had stood three years before. 
These figures can scarcely be studied without bringing us 
to the conclusion, that the circulation — governed, as it is, by 
the wants of the people — has really nothing to do with finan- 
cial crises, whose true and only cause is to be found in that 
other element of power, the amount of credits standing on 
the books of the bank, and denominated deposits. The more 
they can be swelled, the larger is the power of the bank to 
over-trade, and the greater must be the intensity of distress 
resulting from revulsion ; but the greater must also be that 
injury to credit which forces all to look to the one great and 
controlling institution, the greater must be its power to 
charge high interest, and the larger must be its dividends. 
This bank, as well as that of England, has, therefore, a direct 
interest in so using the enormous power conferred upon it 
as to produce frequent and severe revulsions. 

§ 4. The power of the bank over the currency, and over the 
value of property as measured by money, is, as we see, wholly, 
uncontrolled — it being, in this respect, omnipotent. How it 
has been exercised is shown by the following facts : — Between 
1815 and 1818, the bills discounted were carried up from 
203,000,000 to 615,000,000, and this was followed by a crisis, 
resulting in a reduction to 389,000,000. Scarcely escaped 
therefrom, the bank repeats the operation, carrying up its 
loans from 384,000,000 in 1821 to 489,000,000 in 1824, and 
638,000,000 in the year of crisis, 1825. So was it again in 
the period of excitement closing in 1837. In 1847 the move- 
ments of the bank amounted to 2714,000,000. In 1850 they 
were but 1470,000,000, thus exhibiting a reduction of nearly 
one-half in the standard measure with which money values 
were to be compared. Such a change as this tended, of 
course, to the ruin of all who had labor, lands, or property 
of any description, that they required to sell. Two years 
later, in 1852, they were 2514,000,000 ; and then those who 
desired to purchase found themselves in the position which 
had before been occupied by those who needed to sell. One 
class, however, profited by all these changes — tlie already 
rich, who dealt in money. Like the Bank of England, that 
of France prospers always — its dividends growing sleadily, 



336 CHAPTER XXVIII. § 5. 

and the tendency towards increase of growth being in ilie 
direct ratio of the destruction of private credit. In 1844 its 
stockholders had 9 per cent. The next year they received 
12"4 ; but in 1846, preliminary to the crisis which then soon 
after occurred, they had no less than 14"4 per cent., or nearly 
thrice the ordinary rate of interest. 

§ 5. In both the physical and social world increase of force 
results from increased rapidity of motion. The use of the 
circulating note tending to produce that effect, its effect is seen 
in the rapid growth of both the commerce and the power of 
France. Both, however, are small, when compared with 
what they might attain to be, under a system calculated to 
give to the movement of the societary machine that steadiness 
which is required for obtaining a constantly accelerating force. 

"Not a man in France," says M. Coquelin, "produces as 
much as he could" — a fact whose cause is to be found in 
languid circulation. The real difficulty, as he continues, is 
not that of production, but that of finding a purchaser for the 
things produced. Why does this difficulty exist ? Because 
of the existence of a political and financial centralization un- 
excelled in Europe. 

France is, however, a country of "contrasts." A central- 
ization that is unmatched tends towards slavery and death ; 
but, on the other hand, she profits by the advice of Colbert — 
seeking always to bring the consumer and the producer close 
together, and thus to give value to the produce of the farm. 
The consequences are seen in the fact, that she exports a 
larger quantity of home-grown products in a finished form 
than any other country of the world — that she obtains for 
them a higher price than any other — that her power to attract 
the precious metals is steadily increasing — that she prospers 
in despite of a taxation for governmental purposes that is 
most oppressive, and a taxation for the maintenance of the 
stockholders of the Bank of France compared with which 
that required for tlie support of her fleets and armies sink:^ 
into insignificance. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 337 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

VII. — Of Banking in the United States. 

1 1. Gradual development of the American banking system. How it stood at the close of 
the half century which followed the Revolution. Its progress since that time. Large 
proportion borne by capital to the amount of investments. 

{ 2. Steadiness in the action of banks is in the direct ratio of their dependence upon the 
power of affording means of circulation, and in the inverse ratio of their dependence 
upon deposits. American banks possess more of the elements of stability than those of 
France and England. 

1 3. Small proportion borne by the currency to production when compared with either 
of the above-named countries. 

{ 4. Superior economy of the American system. 

g 5. Steadiness in its own value the great desideratum in a currency. Tendencies of the 
American system in that direction. 

2 6. Trivial amount of losses by American banks under the system of local action prior to 
1837. Heavy losses of the people of England from the failures of private banks. 

{ 7. Growth of centralization in the last twenty years, and consequent diminution in the 
steadiness of the currency. Maintenance of a sound and stable currency incompatible 
with the existence of an unfavorable balance of trade. That balance unfavorable in 
relation to all purely agricultural countries. 

2 8. Instability of American policy. Periods of protection and free trade alternating with 
each other. Prosperity the invariable attendant of the former, and bankruptcy of the 
people and the State that of the latter. 

§ 9. The money-shop, or bank, one of the most necessary portions of the societary ma- 
chinery. More than any otiier, the American banking system tends to promote the 
habit of association, the development of intlividuality, and the growth of wealth. 

§ 1. The political system of these United States tends 
towards decentralization. So, too, does their financial one ; 
but here, as elsewhere, -e policy that seeks to build up foreign 
trade on the ruins of domestic commerce, produces disturb- 
ance, whose result is already seen in the establishment of a 
centralization that but a few years since would have been 
regarded as beyond the possibility of occurrence. 

The gradual development of the banking system in the half 
century which followed the peace of 1783, is here exhibited : 

No. of banks. Capital. 

1811 88 $42,000,(100 

1816 216 89.000,1100 

1820 3117 101,000,000 

1830 328 110,000,000 

The loans and investments of all kinds at the last of these 
dates, as nearly as can be ascertained, were $170,000,000, 
giving an excess beyond the capital of little more than fifty 
per cent 
29 



338 CHAPTKR XXIX. § 2. 

For later periods the amounts are thus given, the item in- 
vestments including not only loans and discounts, but stocks, 
real estate, and all other property, except specie, the mode of 
statement least favorable to the institutions : — 

1837. 1843. 1848. 1851. 1854. 1856. 

Number 634 ... 691 ... 751 ... 879 ... 1208 , 130fl 

Cupital— in millions 290 ... 228 ... 204 ... 226 ... 301 ... 332 

Investments— in millions 667 ... 319 ... 398 ... 464 ... 630... 711 



E.xcess investments 27f ... 91 ... 189 ... 238 ... 329 ... 379 

With the exception of the period immediately succeeding 
the great financial crisis of 1841-2, the amount of invest- 
ments appears in all these cases to have been, as nearly as 
may be, about twice the capital ; whereas, as has been seen, 
the loans of the banks, public and private, of England and 
France, are three, four, five, and even as much as ten times 
their capitals. 

Adding the profits on hand to the nominal .amount of capital, 

we obtain for the last of the.»e years a total of $345,000,000 

While the investments would scarcely exceed 655,000,000 



Giving as the excess of investments $310,000,000 

or about ninety per cent. That excess represents the total 
amount of circulation and of credits on the books, for the 
redemption of which the institutions have not specie in their 
vaults. 

§ 2. The amount of the currency of a country dependent 
upon the movements of its banks, is to be found in the circu- 
lation and the deposits, minus the quantity of specie retained 
on hand. The first, as has been shown in the examination 
of English banking, is an almost constant quantity ; whereas, 
the last tends to change with every rise and fall of the politi- 
cal or financial barometer. The first, while increasing the 
utility of gold and silver by giving greater facility for the 
transfer of property therein, is regulated strictly by the wants 
of the people themselves; as, whatever the extent to which 
a Ijank may see fit to extend its loans, it has no power to 
compel the persons to whose credit the securities are placed, 
lo convert them into notes. He may do so if he will, but he 
will not do so unless it pleases him ; and so long as the option 
rests with him, and others like himself, the amount of the 
circulation rests with him and them, and not with the bank. 
Hence it is that the tendency to steadiness in the circulation 
is so rery great. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 339 

In tlie case of " deposits" directly the reverse of this oc- 
curs, increase in their amount being dependent upon the will 
of bank directors, who may, or may not, add to the credits 
on their books. Every such addition swells the amount of 
private capital in their hands, unproductive to its owners ; 
and hence it is that the tendency to instability in the loans 
dependent upon deposits is so great. Again, the bank-note 
simply facilitates the transfer of an exi!<ting.\y\ece of money, 
enabling a single piece to do as much work as without its 
help could be done by five or ten. The loan that is based 
upon a deposit doubles the apparent amount of currency, the 
power of purchase remaining with the real owner of the 
money, while being exercised, and to the same extent pre- 
cisely, by him to whom the bank has lent it. 

Such being the case, the tendency to stability and regularity 
should be found existitig in the preci.^e ratio in which the 
excess of loans is based upon the circulation ; and, vice ve7'm, 
the tendency to instabilit}'^ should be in the ratio in which 
that excess is based upon the deposits. Assuming this to be 
tlie case — and that so it is cannot be questioned by any one 
who has carefully examined the facts already laid before him 
— we may now compare the extent to which American banks 
are po.sses.sed of the qualities required for giving stability and 
regularity, as compared with those of England. 

The loans of the firs^t, not based upon actual capital, amount 

to iibout $310,0"0,(100 

Their actual circulation is probably about ICO, 000, 000 

I/eaving, as the amount of loans based upon deposits $150,000,000 

The dependence upon the variable quantity — that one 
which, to its whole extent, duplicotea the money at the 
command of individuals — amounts, therefore, to only 
$160,000,000, being less than the amount of such loans 
made by ten joint-stock banks in London, whose whole 
capital is but $18,000,000. Adding to this the similar loans 
made by the Bank of England, the country banks of all kinds, 
and the Scottish ones, we should find the element of instability 
in the British institutions to an amount five times greater than 
in the American ones. Even this, however, does not truly 
represent the facts ; and for the reason, that while the amount 
increases in an arithmetical ratio only, the risk of change does 
so in a geometrical one. A bank with a capital of $1,000,000 
may safely calculate that the credit on its books can never fall 
below $200,000; and when the amount of its loans based 



340 CHAPTER XXIX. § 3. 

upon such credits is limited within that sum, no change can 
ever be required. Let it, however, extend this to $400,000, 
and a probable necessity for considerable change will have 
been produced. Extending them to $600,000, a necessity for 
future change will have become certain. Carrying them up 
to $1,000,000, there will arise a high degree of probability 
that the change required will be so great as to bankrupt the 
customers, and annihilate the bank itself, with all its powers. 
The 'quantity of the excess has only quintupled, but the 
danger of instability has grown a thousand times. Instability 
and insecurity thus grow with the growtli of the power of 
banks to trade upon the capital of individuals left temporarily 
in their hands ; while it declines as the loans of those institu- 
tions become more and more limited to their power to furnish 
circulation. Such being the case, the perfection of instability 
should be found in England, while the nearest approach to 
stability should be presented by the banks of New England, 
the one furnishing ahuost the nearest known approach to the 
highest centralization, and the other exhibiting a decentrali- 
zation that is almost perfect. 

§ 3. Centralization and slavery travel always in the same 
direction. So is it, too, with decentralization and freedom. 

The more perfect the local action, the more instantly will 
the demand for capital follow its production, and the less will 
be the power of banks to trade upon deposits lying unpro- 
ductive to their owners. The more perfect that action, too, 
the greater will be the power of association, and the less will 
be the proportion borne by all the instruments of circulation 
— whether gold and silver coins, or circulating notes — to the 
operations of the community and the amount of commerce 
Such being the case, the currency of the United States should 
be found representing a smaller number of days of labor than 
that of England or France ; and that it does so is proved by 
the following facts : — 

The specie of Prance is estimated at francs 3,500,000,000 

The circulation and deposits of the bank — minus the specie 

actually in its vaults — may be taken at 400,000,000 

Giving a total of 3,900,000,000 

or about 110 francs per head — a sum representing probably 
80 days of agricultural labor. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 341 

The qunntity of specie in Great Britain is probably £40,000.000 

The circulation is 31,0(i0,0(l0 

The deposits, liable to be demanded at any instant, are probably 60,000,000 



£131.000.000 
From which deduct, for the specie usually held by the bank, say 11,000,000 



And we have for the currency £120,000,000 

being about £4 10s. per head, or the equivalent of 45 days 
of labor, at 12s. per week. 

The specie in the United States, in and out of banks, hoarded 

and in cireuljiticn, is probably $160,000,000 

Adding to thi.«, for the r.iiHiunt of loans by banks, based upon 

their circulation and deposits 370,000,000 



AVe have a total of. $530,000,000 

giving about $20 per head, or the equivalent of 30 days of 
agricultural labor. 

The capital of all the banks of New England, 491 in number, is $112,000,000 
Allowing to each, for surplus profits, only $6000, it would be.,,. 115,000,000 
Their investments of all descriptione, bills, notes, stocks, bank- 
ing houses, etc., are 181,000,000 



The excess is 57 per cent., and amounts to , 66,000,000 

Deducting from this the specie in their vaults 7,000,000 

We obtain, as the addition to the currency resulting from the 

existence of banks $59,000,000 

The gross circulation is $46,000,000, but the net amount ie 

probably not more than 42,000,000 

Leaving as the qu.intity of currency resulting from the dupli- 
cation of the capital deposited by individuals, only $17,000,000 

The amount of circulation, and of deposits payable on demand, 

may be taken at about 60,000,000 

To this may be added for the coin in circulation among the 

people 3.000,000 

Giving a total of $63,000,000 

as the currency in use among a community of 3,200,000 ]K'r- 
sons. The amount per head is under $20 — representing about 
25 days of agricultural labor. 

The currency of France thus represents the labor of 80 days. 
That of England " " " 45 " 

Thatof the United States at large " " 30 " 

That of New England " " 25 " 

and in this latter it is that we find most of the elements of 
stability. 



342 CHAPTER XXIX. § 5. 

§ 4. The amount of the precious metals supposed to exist 
in France, in the form of coin, is about 100 francs per head — 

Representing the labor of more than 70 days. 

In Great Britain, about £2 — representing 20 •' 

In the United States at large, $5 50 — equal to 8i " 

In New England, $3 — representing less than 4 " 

The currency of France is the most costly. There it is that 
money is least utilized by means of circulating notes — that 
the need of improved machinery of exchange is most ex- 
perienced — and that the proportion borne by the currency to 
production is the largest. The hoards of that country are, 
however, very numerous. Frequent revolutions, and the 
absence of local institutions in which to make small and tem- 
porary investments, tend, both, to the production of this effect. 
It may well be doubted if the quantity of money in actual 
use is even one-half of the sum at which it is usually estimated, 
and at which it is above put down. 

The currency of England is very costly, but less so than 
that of France, money being there far more utilized by the 
means of notes. The pi'oportion in which it stands to labor 
is large. Its tendency to instability is therefore very great. 

Far less costly than either of the above, and with far 
superior claims to stability, is the highly-localized system of 
the American banks in general; but when we reach New 
England, we find the least expensive, the most useful, and 
the most stable of all the currencies of the world. The more 
perfect the freedom, the greater is the tendency to stability 
and the less the cost, as is proved in the passage from the 
Southern and Western States towards those of the North 
and East. 

§ 5. The great desideratum of a system of currency is 
steadiness in its own value, fitting it to be a measure of 
changes in the value of other things. That such is the case 
vvith measures of weight and length is abundantly proved by 
the exceeding care with which it is sought to provide a 
standard with which to compare all yardsticks, all pound 
weights, and all other of the instruments used for determining 
the quantities of cloth, iron, sugar, cotton, and other com- 
modities, that pass from hand to hand. Infinitely greater, 
however, is the need for steadiness in the instrument by 
means of which we compare the values of land, labor, houses, 
ships, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and other commodities and 
things. It is the one essential quality of a currency ; and 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 343 

the advantage to the coniraunity resulting from the use of this 
great instrument of association must be in the precise ratio 
of its existence. 

Steadiness being found in the physical world in the ratio 
of the width of the base to the height of the superstructure, 
so should it be in the financial one, there being but a single 
system of laws for the government of all matter, let it take 
what form it may. In proof of this we may take Rhode Island, 
which had, in 1852, 71 banks, or one for every two thousand 
of its population, with a total capital of $14,876,000; while 
all the property held by them amounted to only $19,486,000. 
The foundation being there very broad, and the building but 
of little height, the efifects are seen in the fact, that changes 
in the value of property resulting from the action of Rhode 
Island banks have been too trivial to merit even the slightest 
notice. 

The reverse of all this is seen in Pennsylvania — a State in 
which the security of banking is supposed to be promoted by 
the centralization of power in the hands of the managers of 
a few highly-favored institutions. The number of banks in 
1850 was 63, or but one to every forty thousand of the popu- 
lation. Their capitals were $20,357,000, giving $8 per head ; 
whereas those of Rhode Island gave nearly $100 per head. 
Their loans and discounts amounted to $44^000,000, but the 
total investments were nearly $50,000,000, giving an excess 
of no less than a hundred and fifty per cent. ; with correspond- 
ing decrease of steadiness. In the one ease, no circumstances 
could occur to render necessary a change of action amounting 
to even five per cent.; whereas, in the other, a change of 
almost fifty per cent would be required for reducing them to 
the point of sarety at which the Rhode Island banks habitu- 
ally stand. 

Steadiness in the currency grows thus, as we see, in the 
ratio of the freedom with which men indulge their natural 
desire for association ; and with its growth we witness every- 
where a decline in the power of that portion of the com- 
munity which live at the cost of their fellow-men. The 
stockholders of the Bank of France obtain thrice the usual 
rate of interest, while the men whose capital they use are 
compelled to be content with mere security for the return of 
their capital, without interest. The proprietors of joint-stock 
banks in England receive enormous dividends, while their 
creditors are required to be content with three per cent. 
The Bank of England divides eight per cent., while giving 



341 CHAPTER XXTX. § 6. 

nothing to its depositors. Pennsylvania banks divide ren anJ 
twelve per cent.; or double the legal rate. Tliose of Massa- 
chusetts give seven ; while Rhode Island stockholders receive 
an average of six, being precisely the rate of interest paid by 
those to whom loans are made. The more perfect the free- 
dom of -association for banking purposes, and the fewer the 
liabilities imposed, the greater is the tendency to equality of 
rights, the more secure the currency, and the less its cost. 

§ 6. The average number of banks in New England from 
1811 to 1830 was 97, and the failures in twenty-five years 
were 16, giving two-thirds of one per cent, per annum. The 
average capital was about $22,000,000. Those of the insti- 
tutions that failed were $2,000,000, giving thirty-six-hun- 
dredths of one per cent, per annum. The loss sustained by 
the communitj" cannot much have exceeded $600,000, giving 
an annual average of $20,000, or one-eleventh of one per cent, 
of the capitals of the banks, and not even the ten-thousandth 
of one per cent, of tlie operations facilitated by those institu- 
tions. The risk attendant upon transactions with the banks 
in New England, for the period of above a quarter of a 
century, cannot be estimated at even a single dollar in a 
million. 

Taking the whole Union together, the average number of 
banks in existence during this period had been 242, and the 
total failures 16*7, three-fourths of which were south and west 
of New York, the proportion increasing with the diminution 
of population and of wealth. The an niial average of failures 
was two and three-fourths per cent.; whereas the failures of 
private banks in England, in the period from 1814 to 1816, 
were 240 in number, and more than twenty-five per cent, of 
the whole. Even between 1821 and 1826, a period in which 
there was no extraordinary occurrence, the English average 
was nearly as high as the American one during a quarter of 
a century in which there had been changes from peace to 
war, and from war to yjeace — the whole world having been 
agitated by the extraordinary events attendant upon the great 
war in Europe, and the peace which followed it. It is a fact 
strikingly illustrative of the advantage attendant upon free- 
dom in the exercise of the power of association, as conipared 
with the monopoly system of England, that from the first 
institution of banks in America to the year 183Y, the failures 
were less in number, by almost a third, than those of England 
in the three years from 1814 to 1816. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 345 

§ 7. The American system provides for the localization of 
capital, for the benefit of its owner and those in whom he is 
interested ; while both the British and the French systems 
provide for its centralization in London and Paris, there to 
be used by middlemen styled bankei's, who borrow money at 
a low price and lend it at a high one. Under the jne, fully 
carried out, small institutions, acting as savings banks, would 
be everywhere found, as is now the case in the New England 
States. Under the other, the savings of the poor laborer of 
Cork, or Limerick, are required to be invested in government 
stocks ; as are, in France, those of the workman of Sedan or 
Rouen, the laborer of Provence or of Languedoc. Decentral- 
ization tends towards steadiness ; and yet the last half century 
has witnessed no less than two suspensions of all the Ameri- 
can banks, while on another occasion more than half of them 
were compelled to adopt that course. Great institutions have 
been entirely annihilated, while many smaller ones have sunk 
nearly all their capital; yet, examining the general banking 
movement where we ma}^, we find the loans to be so smnll 
when compared with their actual capital, as to warrant us in 
looking for a steadiness that would ensure to the people a 
regularity in the currency greater than could be found in any 
other country ; and to the stockholders an almost entire 
security against serious danger. The cause of all these 
apparent contradictions may be found in the following 
proposition : — 

Money cannot have that stability of value wdiich is required 
for constituting it a proper standard for the comparison of 
values in any country in whose favor there is not a steady 
and regular balance of trade payable in the precious metals. 

That this mud be so the reader will readily perceive. 
Those metals are required for various purposes in the arts. 
They are liable to be lost, while, of all others, they are most 
subjected to the hoarding propensity ; and, while hoarded, 
they are wholly useless to the community. For the moment, 
they are annihilated. Further, coin is liable to loss of weight 
by abrasion, as is so obvious to all who still need to use the 
smaller silver coins of earlier days. For meeting these 
demands, an inward flow of the precious metals is as much 
required as is such a flow of corn or oil, silk or cotton, in the 
countries in which those commodities are not produced. 

Such being the case, it is clear that no country can continue 
permanently lo use gold and silver coin as currency, against 
which there is a steady balance of trade. Whatever may be 



346 CHAPTER XXIX. § "l. 

the qn mtity held, and how small soever may be the excess of 
export, that, combined with the consumption, must gradually 
so reduce the quantity as to cause distrust and hoarding, 
each and every step in that direction being one of constant 
acceleration. Rich as is Brazil, she uses paper certificates in 
place of coin. Abounding in gold as California does, the 
price of money is there enormous, and has led to repudiaticn ' 
of her debts. The value of Russian paper money was well' 
maintained during many years of war, but it so declined in 
value after the peace of 1815, and the establishment of com- 
parative freedom of trade, that a note for four roubles would 
exchange for only one in silver. With natural advantages 
exceeded by those of no country in the world, Turkey collects 
her revenue in kind, while the government debases the coin 
from year to year. Portugal was bankrupted by the Methuen 
treaty, which made provision for that export of raw produce 
which was to lead, inevitably, to the export of her stock of 
the precious metals. Spain exported raw materials, sending 
with them the produce of the mines of Mexico and Peru. 
France did the same under the treaty of 1786, and thus pro- 
duced a revolution. The balance of trade, to an extent 
unknown in any other country of the world, having always 
been in favor of England, she has been enabled to use gold 
and silver coin. Prance now does the same, and so do 
Belgium, Northern Germany, and Russia, all of which are 
following in the line of policy indicated by Colbert, and so 
long pursued by England. All experience proves that the 
balance of trade miint be against the countries which export 
raw produce, that the precious metals must flow from those 
countries, and that they must, while continuing in that course 
of policy, abandon the. idea of using gold and silver coin as a 
standard of value. 

Reasoning now d priori, we arrive, and that inevitably, 
at the same results A country that does not produce the 
precious metals must dispense with their use, or it must im- 
port them. To enable it to do this latter, it must establish 
in its favor a balance of trade payable in those metals. If it 
fail to do this, it must cease to use them in the arts, and must 
at length dispense with their use as standards for the com- 
parison of values. To attempt to maintain the reverse of 
this is a pure absurdity ; and yet, such is the tendency of all 
those teachers of modern political economy who follow in the 
train of Hume and Adam Smith in reference to this important 
ou' tion. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 347 

§ 8. The policy of these United States has been very 
variable, tending occasionally, and for short periods, to the 
arrest of the export of raw materials, and of gold. As a rule, 
however, the tendency has been in the opposite direction, 
the consequences having exhibited themselves in the stoppage 
and failure of banks above referred to. They are found, for 
the tirst time, in the period from 1817 to 1824, when manu- 
factures came freely in, and coin went freely out. For the 
second, in the calamitous years which preceded the passage 
of the Protective Tariff Act of 1842. Excluding these two 
periods, it may be doubted if all the failures of banks through- 
out the Union, in the thirty years from 1816 to 1846, 
amounted to .the thousandth part of one per cent.; or, if the 
losses of the people by the banks amounted to even the 
millionth part of one per cent, upon the business which they 
so much facilitated. The losses resulting from the use of 
ships in a single year would pay a hundred times over the 
losses by all the banks of the country for a century, with the 
exception of the six years ending in 1824, and the five which 
closed in 1842. 

Then, as now, the country was strained in the effort to 
produce an export of raw materials by which the soil was to 
be exhausted ; and then, as now, the precious metals followed 
in their train. , That policy forbade the use of gold and silver 
coin. It forbade the existence of credit ; and hence it was, 
that hoarding became so general in the years from 1837 to 
1840, that the large export of coin to this country by the 
Bank of England, in 1838, had not even the slightest effect 
in restoring the confidence that had been lost. So is it now 
(1856). The quantity of gold in the country is greater far 
than it has ever been, but it is shut up in treasury vaults, 
because of want of confidence in banks; it is being trans- 
ported from South to North, or from West to East ; or it is 
shut up in private hoards; but — and for the simple and 
obvious reason that confidence has no existence — it is not in 
circulation. All are now (1856) looking for an explosion 
similar to those of the periods of 1817 to 1820, and of 1837 
to 1842; and all, who can, prepare for it. 

Directly the reverse of this is what we meet with whenever 
the policy of the country tends to raise the prices of home- 
grown raw materials, and thus to arrest their export. Under 
the tariff of 1828, so perfect had become the stal)ility of the 
price of flour, that it remained entirely unaffected here, 
notwithstanding the extraordinary changes of foreign mar- 



348 CHAPTER XXIX. § 8. 

kets. Under that tariff the precious metals flowed in, and 
confidence was complete. The policy was changed, and 
mines ceased to be opened, while furnaces ceased to be built ; 
and then confidence disappeared. Under the tariff of 1842, 
money became abundant, not because of a large increase of 
import, but because of the almost instant re-establishment of 
public and private credit. The gold and silver that had been 
hoarded and thus for the time annihilated, then came forth, 
to become available for the purposes for which they had 
been intended. 

All the facts presented by the history of the United States 
may be adduced in proof of the assertion, that a country 
which maintains a policy lending to promote the export of 
raw materials 'must have against it a balance of trade requir- 
ing the export of the precious metals,. and must dispense with 
their services as meastires of value. 

Those facts may briefly thus be stated : — 

Protection ceased in 1818, bequeathing to free trade a com- 
merce that gave an excess import of specie, a people among 
whom there existed great prosperity, a large public revenue, 
and a rapidly diminishing public debt. 

Free trade ceased in 1824, bequeathing to protection a 
commerce that gave an excess export of specie, an im- 
poverished people, a declining public revenue, and an in- 
creasing public debt. 

Protection ceased in 1834-35, bequeathing to free trade 
a commerce that gave an excess import of specie, a people 
more prosperous than any that had ever then been known, 
a revenue so great that it had been rendered necessary to 
emancipate tea, coffee, and many other commodities from 
duty, and a treasury free from all charge on account of 
public debt. 

Free trade ceased in 1842, bequeathing to protection a 
commerce that gave an excess export of specie, a people 
ruined, and their governments in a state of repudiation, a 
public treasury bankrupt, and begging everywhere for loans 
at the highest rate of interest, a revenue collected and dis- 
bursed in irredeemable paper money, and a very large 
foreign debt. 

Protection ceased in 1847, bequeathing to free trade a com- 
merce that gave an excess import of specie, a highly pros- 
perous people. State governments restored to credit, a rapidly 
growing commerce, a large public revenue, and a declining 
foreign debt. 



OF THE INSTKUMKNT UF ASSOCIATION. 319 

Since that time California lias supplied liundreils of mil- 
lions of dollars in gold, nearly all of which have been exported, 
or (1856) locked up in public and private hoards ; the conse- 
quences of which are seen in the facts that commerce is 
paralyzed, that the price of money in the commercial cities 
has ranged for years between ten and thirty per cent, per 
annum, and that the indebtedness to foreign nations has in- 
creased to such an amount as to require, for the payment of 
interest alone, a sum equal to the average export of food to 
all the countries of the world. 

§ 9. Of all the institutions of a community none are capable 
of rendering a greater aniuunt of service, and yet none are 
less understood or more calumniated, none in general more 
dreaded, than banks. Every community needs a money- 
shop, or place for facilitating intercourse between those who 
have money, and those who, having it not, desire to obtain 
it. One man seeks to have his little stock securely kept. 
Another requires an order for money to be paid at anothtr 
place. A third would have a circulating note, and thus be 
relieved of the necessity for carrying gold or silver, both of 
which are far more bulky than the note. The owner of 
thousands, or of millions, places them in the bank, which 
latter pays them out in ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred smaller 
sums of the precise amount desired, thus saving to its cus- 
tomer much labor and all the risk of loss. In the early 
periods of society these services are paid for by a commission 
upon the sums deposited and thus withdrawn ; but in the 
later ones, banks furnish even the greater facility of circulat- 
ing notes for the use of which they make no charge, the 
machinery of commerce thus becoming less costly as it 
becomes more perfect. 

In the various small communities now growing up through- 
out the Western States, there are many little capitalists, some 
of whom are preparing for the purchase of houses or lots, or 
that of little farms ; while others seek to open shops. To alt 
of these, while thus waiting, it is desirable that their money 
should itself be earning something, thus adding to their little 
stock. To the community itself it is desirable that the ac- 
cumulations of the tailor and the carpenter, the little fortunes 
of the widow and the orphan, and the savings of the doctor 
and the clergyman, should be kept in active operation. 
Combining their efforts, these little capitalists open a shop 
for the purpose of lending out their money, and for affording 
30 



350 CHAPTER XXIX. § 9. 

to the people of the neighborhood a place of secure deposit 
for such portions of their respective capitals as may from 
time to time become unemployed. The stock therein being 
held in shares, is readily transferable, the shoemaker, when 
ready to buy his house, selling out to the tailor; the clerk, 
wiien ready to open a shop, parting with his interest to the 
clergyman. The joint capital being security to those who 
trade with it for the safe return of their money, no one now 
finds it necessary to hide or bury his little stock. The bank, 
tlius organized, aids the farmer in his purchases of manure, 
the shopkeeper in obtaining a larger supply of goods,- and the 
builder in obtaining bricks and timber, the little savings of 
the neighborhood being thus actively emploj^ed on the spot 
on which they have been made. To pay the expenses of 
management the bankers must make a charge for the accom- 
modation they afford in receiving, guarding, and paying out 
again, at the pleasure of their owners, the moneys deposited 
with them ; or, they must pay themselves with the interest 
derived from their use. The advantage derived from the 
existence of the bank is the facility with which small sums 
may be temporarily invested and recalled, the community 
meanwhile profiting by the fact that all its wealth is actively 
employed. Were the laborer not to lend his fellow-laborer 
his horse, he could not borrow his cart ; and were the owners 
of little sums of money to keep them in old stockings, they 
might find it difficult to borrow when they, themselves, re- 
quired so to do. 

The money-shop thus formed now constitutes a little sav- 
ings bank for disengaged capital ; as lands, houses, and lots, 
constitute similar banks in which is invested what would 
otherwise be the waste labor of their proprietors. In time, 
employments becoming more and more diversified, there is, 
with every stage of progress in that direction, a diminution 
in the quantity of currency required, the farmer now exchang- 
ing directly with the tanner and the shoeuiaker, and the 
hatter with the dealer in sugar and coffee, the balance alone 
being paid in money. Less capital being now required for 
maintaining the machinery of exchange from hand to hand, 
more of capital and labor may be given to production, and 
the return to both is much increased — a result towards the 
accomplishment of which the little money-shop contributes 
largely. 

The owner of money, or currency, now retains some of it 
m his pocket-book, while other portions of it are in the bank. 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 351 

In the one case he is the proprietoi" of what is called " circu- 
lation," and in the other he is the owner of a "deposit," the 
proportion borne by the former to the latter depending upon 
the proximity, or i*emoteness, of the bank. If near to him, 
he will keep very few notes on hand, because he can have 
more at any moment, his check always answering in their 
stead ; but if it be remote, he must always have with him as 
many notes as will serve his purposes for a week or month. 
Increase in the facility of obtaining the description of cur- 
rency that is needed tends, therefore, to diminish the quantity 
iept on hand, while facilitating exchanges, and increasing the 
power of combination. With the growth of wealth and 
population, there is a tendency to increase in the number of 
banks; to increase in the facility of obtaining the machinery 
of exchange ; and to diminution in the proportion which 
money — whether gold, silver, or bank-notes, or in any form 
other than that of credits transferable by checks or drafts — 
bears to the amount of commerce. 

More nearly than in any other portion of the world, the 
American banking system tends to bring together all the 
advantages- above described, perfect power of association, 
accompanied by great development of individuality, to be fol- 
lowed by rapid growth of wealth. The system of its govern- 
ment is, however, directly opposed to this ; and hence it is, 
that from year to year, those characteristics tend to disappear, 
and centralization, witii all its vices, to take their place. 
Examine them where we may, these United States present 
the most extraordinary "contrasts" that can anywhere be 
found ; and for the reason, that while local action is in 
accordance with true social science, tiie central governnu-nt 
adopts the doctrine of that modern school which, in regard 
to money, has followed in the footsteps of Hume and Smith, 
whose teachings we may now examine.* 

* The editor desires again to impress upon the reader's mind 
that the state of things above described is that wliich existed at a 
time wlien great imaginary prosperity was preparing the country 
f')r the severe financial crisis of 1S57, and the extraordinary politi- 
cal one that has since occurred. This, however, was but a natural 
consequence of the steady pursuit of a free trade policy wiiich 
built up great trading cities on the ruins of domestic commerce. 

In proof of the assertion that it is tlie people, and not the makers 
of notes, who control the circulation, she gives the fact, just 
now made i)ublic, that with all its power the Federal GovernmcMit 
lias never been able to keep in circulation more than $20,U00,U(.I0 
of notes of less denomination than a dollar. 



352 CHAPTER XXX. § 1. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

OP THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION — CONTINUED. 

YIII. — Of Hume, Smith, and other Writers on Money. 

I \. Theories of Mr. Hume in regard to money. Directly opposed to all the facts of bistorj . 

1 2. His failure to observe, that while increase in the supply of money raises the prices 
of raw materials, it reduces those of finished products. Throughout inconsistent with 
himself. Accuracy of his views when asserting that no country need fear an unfavorable 
balance of trade that " preserved with care its people and its manufactures." 

g 3. General accordance of the views of Hume and Adam Smith. Inconsistencies of the 
latter. A medium of circulation the one great need of society. Hence the desire of all 
communities to establish in their favor a balance of trade. Inconsistencies of the oppo- 
nents of this idea. 

g 4. Doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school In regard to money. Mr. J. S. Mill. His 
views in regard to the inefficiency of money. Failure of the British economists to appre- 
ciate the services of the precious metals. 

g 5. M. Bastiat. Correspondence of his views with those of Hume and Smith. His doc- 
trines being received as true, there can be no harmony of international interests. 

2 6. M. Chevalier holds that money is indispensable to man, and yet, that disadvantage 
may result from increase in its supply. The T)recious metals, the great instruments 
furnished by the Creator for the production of societary motion. The more rapid that 
motion, the greater must be, everywhere, the power of the individual to obtain supplies 
of food, and of the community to command the services of those metals. 

§ 1. " Money is not," says Hume, " properly speaking, one 
of the subjects of commerce, but only the instrument which 
all have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one com- 
modity for another. It is none of the wheels of trade : it is 
the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth 
and easy." 

Had he, however, found it asserted that corn, wine, and the 
flesh of sheep and oxen, had been "agreed upon" by men as 
the food they were to use, he would certainly have asked for 
some evidence that they really had come to such an agree- 
ment ; and had not been led to act as they do, by the fact 
that such commodities had been provided by the Creator for 
man, while creating food of other descriptions for the nourish- 
ment of cows, horses, sheep, and other animals. He would 
naturally have asked the question — " Suppose they did not 
eat these things, what others could they eat ?" and when the 
answer had been made, that they must either eat of them Oi* 
perish, he would have regarded it as evidence that their course 
had been determined by a great law of .nature, and had not 
been "agreed upon" by themselves. 

So, too, with regard to the precious metals. Had he been 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OP ASSOCIATION. 353 

asko.d to designate any other known materials possessing the 
qualities required for gathering together, then dividing ant^ 
distributing, and then again reconibining all the minute por- 
tions of mental and physical force resulting from the daily 
consumption of food ; any other so calculated to maintain the 
power of association among men ; any other fitted so largely 
to augment the power of production, consumption, and accu- 
mulation ; he would have been compelled to admit that there 
were none, and that gold and silver had been provided by 
the Creator for the accomplishment of those great objects. 

If now it were certainly true that they had been so p7-o- 
vided, not a donbt could exist that with increased facility in 
obtaining them there must be improvement in man's con- 
dition. Had they, on the contrary, only been "agreed 
upon," then it might be questioned whether or not increase 
would be beneficial ; and that Mr. Hume thought it would 
not, is shown by the follov/ing passage : — 

" The greater or less plenty of money is of no consequence 

* * * When coin is in greater plenty, as a greater 
quantity of it is required to represent the same quantity of 
goods, it can have no effect, good or bad, taking a nation 
within itself, any more than it would make an alteration in a 
merchant's books if, instead of the Arabian method of nota- 
tion, which requires few characters, he should make use of 
the Roman, which requires a great many." 

Unfortunately for our author and for those who since have 
followed him, the facts are directly the reverse of what they 
are here assumed to be, the prices of finished commodities 
having steadily declined as money has become more and 
more abundant. The amount of the precious metals circu- 
lating in France has more than doubled within the last half 
century, with corresponding increase in the quantity of the 
necessaries and conveniences of life obtainable in exchange 
for them. Wheat has risen, and so have other raw materials ; 
l>ut the improvement in agriculture has been so great, that 
almost all the products of a higher cultivation have been 
made more accessible to the laborer. Land and labor have 
risen in price, while cloth and iron have greatly fallen. 
Such, too, has been the course of things in every country of 
the world into which money has flowed ; whereas, directly 
the reverse is observed in Ireland, Turkey, India, and those 
other countries in which the supply of money has diminislied. 
Tlie theory and the facts are thus directly at war with each 
other. 



354 CHAPTER XXX. § 2. 

§ 2. Increase in the supply of the precious metals, as we 
are assured by Mr. Hume, causes "losses to the nation in its 
commerce with foreigners," because it raises the price of 
labor, and heightens those of commodities, thus " obliging 
every one to pay a greater number of those little white and 
yellow pieces than they had been accustomed to do." 

It is, nevertheless, in those countries in which the supply 
increases, that the prices of raw materials and finished com- 
modities tend most to approximate. Finished commodities 
being cheap, the gold, the sugar, the coffee, and the cotton, 
come there to purchase them ; and hence it is, that commerce 
with distant lands increases in the gold-importing countries, 
while diminishing in the gold-exporting ones. For more 
than a century. Great Britain has had the largest foreign 
commerce ; and for the reason, that she has exported cloth 
and iron with which to pay for gold. The foreign commerce 
of France and Germany, now probably the largest recipients 
of the gold of California and Australia, has rapidly increased. 
Where, however, the supply of the precious metals declines, 
as in Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, and India, we find the 
reverse of this, the power of maintaining commerce, whether 
at home or abroad, being there a steadily declining one. 
Here, again, we find the actual facts and the theory to be the 
antipodes of each other. 

Strangely contradicting himself, he elsewhere assures his 
readers that whenever money flows into a country, "every 
thing takes a new face, and labor and industry gain life," it 
being "easy to trace the money in its progress through the 
commonwealth," quickening "the diligence of every individ- 
ual before it increases the price of labor;" all of which is 
most true. Nevertheless, a moment later we find him assert- 
ing, "that it is of no manner of consequence to the domestic 
happiness of a state whether money be in greater or less 
quantity." Contradicting himself once again, he assures us, 
that when money decreases the people suffer, and " poverty, 
beggary, and sloth ensue;" and that those countries Avhich 
have but little money, as was then the case with Austria, 
have not " a proportionable weight in the balance of Europe." 
The facts being thus opposed to the theory, he inquires, how 
do they "agree with that principle of reason, that the quan- 
tity of gold and silver is in itself altogether indifferent?" 
The pieces into which those metals were .divided would still, 
as he thinks, " serve the same purposes of exchange, whatever 
their number might be, or whatever color they might have " 



OF TUB IXSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 355 

"To these diOaculties," as lie says, "I answer, that the 
effect here supposed to flow from scarcity of money, really 
arises from the manners and customs of the people, and that 
we mistake, as is too usual, a collateral effect for a cause. 
The contradiction is only apparent. * * It seems a 
maxim almost self-evident, that the prices of every thing 
depend on the proportion between commodities and money. 

* * Increase the commodities, they become cheaper; 
increase the money, ti)ey rise in value;" and thus it is that 
he reconciles reason with experience. 

This is what is styled tlie metaphysical mode of investiga- 
tion, in which men seek in their own minds for the natural 
laws that govern men. It is as if the chemist, leaving his 
laboratory, should shut himself up in his closet to study in 
his own mind what ought to be the composition of the air, 
the water, or the metals. Mr. Ricardo, pursuing the same 
course, was led to place his early settlers on the swamps and 
river bottoms, when daily observation shows that they com- 
mence on the poorer soils, and that it is only as wealth and 
population increase that tiiey obtain power to cultivate the 
richer ones ; while history proves that such has been the case 
from the earliest period to the present time. Equally natural 
was it, that Mr. Hume should imagine that the larger the 
quantity of money, the higher would be the prices of all the 
conuiiodities for which money was to be given. Had he, 
however, reflected, tliat it was but a great instrument fur- 
i.ished by nature for jiroducing circulation among men and 
their products, and that the beneficial effects he himself so 
well describes were but the natural consequence of an increase 
of the power of association resulting from increased facility 
in obtaining command of that instrument, he would have 
found the facts and "the principles of reason" in perfect 
harmony with each other. 

In one respect, however, he was right. No government 
need, according to him, fear the existence of an unfavorable 
balance of trade, that "preserved with care its people and its 
manufactures." Doing that, it might, as regarded its money, 
"safely trust to the course of human affairs, without fear or 
jealousy." That such is the case, is proved by the example 
of England for a century past ; by that of France ; by those 
of all the countries of Northern Europe in the present day ; 
and by that of these United States, whenever their policy has 
tended to the promotion of association among their people, 
to the diversification of employments, to the development of 



^5(i CHAPTER XXX. § 3. 

the powers of the land and of the men by whom it was cul- 
tivated, to the creation of a domestic market, and to the 
relief of the farmer from that most oppressive of all taxes, the 
tax of transportation. Caring "for their people and their 
manufactures," they have then, and only then, had in their 
favor a steadily-growing balance of trade, accompanied by a 
prosperity such as had never before been known. 

§ 3. In regard to money, Adam Smith followed closely in 
the footsteps of Mr. Hume, holding with him that money 
makes but a small part of the capital of a nation, " and always 
the most unprofitable part of it." It is, nevertheless, the 
commodity that all men seek to obtain, that all nations rejoice 
in receiving, and that all regret should leave them — the com- 
mon sense of mankind, and the theories of economists, being 
thus the poles of each other. Which is right ? Seeking an 
answer to this question, let the reader calculate the amount 
of exchanges facilitated by a fleet of ships that may have cost 
ten or twenty millions, and then compare it with those effected 
by means of a single hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
three, five, or ten cent pieces, and he will find that the latter 
do more work in a month than the others could do in a year, 
if not in years. In the estimate of Dr. Smith, nevertheless, 
"the gold and silver money which circulates in any country, 
and by means of which the produce of its land and labor is 
annually circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, 
is all dead stock." Increase of their cheapness, in his opinion, 
rendered them " rather less fit for the purposes of money than 
they were before. In order to make the same purchases, we 
must," as he thought, " load ourselves with a greater quantity 
of them, and carry about a shilling in our pockets where we 
carried a groat before." 

Diminution in the value of these metals in any particular 
country tended, according to Dr. Smith, to make " everybody 
really poorer;" that is, increased facility in obtaining the 
great instrument provided by the Creator for facilitating asso- 
ciation among men was to be regarded as an evidence of 
poverty, and not of wealth ! The man who wrote these 
words can scarcely be regarded as having studied the subject 
in reference to which he undertook to instruct the world. 

Why it is, that the idea, so universal among men, that 
wealth, happiness, and progress are associated with increase 
in the supplies of money, is so very erroneous, is, as we are 
told, that — 



OF THE IXSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 3o7 

"The rise in the money prices of commodities, which is, in 
this case, peculiar to that country, tends to discourage more 
or less every sort of industry which is carried on within it, 
and to enable foreign nations, by furnishing all sorts of goods 
for a smaller quantity of silver than its own workmen can 
afford to do, to undersell them, not only in the foreign, but in 
the domestic, market." 

The answer to these assertions is found in the fact, that in 
all countries towards which the precious metals flow there is 
a constant tendency towards the approximation of prices, 
those of rude products of the earth rising, and those of 
finished commodities falling, ihe countries, themselves, be- 
coming the best market in which to sell and to buy ; as is 
proved by the case of England in the past, and France and 
Germany in the present. The theory and the facts are not in 
harmony with each other; and yet upon this assumption of 
facts that never have existed, and never can exist, is based 
the whole of the celebrated argument in reference to " the 
balance of trade." 

The theory of Dr. Smith being thus, like that of Mr. Hume, 
unsound, it is no matter for surprise that we find the one as 
inconsistent with himself as we have already found the other. 
Believing in the advantage resulting from the use of bank- 
notes, he tells his readers that "every saving in the expense 
of collecting and supporting that part of the capital which 
consists in money is an improvement ; " that " the substitution 
of paper in the room of gold and silver money replaces a very 
expensive instrument with one less costly and equally con- 
venient;" that "by this operation £20,000 in gold and silver 
perform all the functions which £100,000 could otherwise 
have performed;" that "the whole value of the great wheel 
of circulation," the use of which is thus economized, " is 
added to the goods which are circulated and distributed ;" and 
that thus is made "a very considerable addition to the quan- 
tity of that industry, and consequently to the value of the 
amount produced by land and lal)or." It is certainly difficult 
to reconcile these statements with the idea that the cheapen- 
ing of the precious metals renders "men really poorer than 
before. " 

Foreign trade tends, however, as we are informed, to pro- 
duce a correction of the difficulty, the use of notes causing 
an " overflow" of the metals " to the whole extent of the paf.er, 
supplied," and " gold and silver to that amount" being " sent 
abroad," " the total amount of the circulation" remaining " as 
it did before." 



858 CHAPTER XXX. § 4. 

The experience of the world is directly opposed to this, 
yet is it constantly assumed that prohibitions of notes are 
necessary for the maintenance of a sound currency, the ten- 
dency being always, as we are assured, towards using that 
which is bad in preference to that which is good. Every- 
where else, however, the reverse of this is true, no prohibitions 
of bad roads, or of inferior mills, being required to secure 
demand for the services of good roads, or of superior mills 
and engines. The currency is necessarily bad in countries 
against which there is a balance of trade, the state of things 
existing in all those which find themselves compelled to 
export their produce in its rudest form. 

In order that it may be good, and that a sound currency 
may be maintained, there must, in all countries that do not 
produce them, be an inward flovv' of the precious metals, con- 
sequent upon the existence of a favorable balance of trade. 
Nevertheless, on turning to Hume or Smith we find that the 
question of such balance is wholly unworthy to occupy the 
attention of those charged with the duties of government; 
and their doctrine has been repeated, with little change, by 
all the writers on money from their day to the present time. 
None can now study the writings of either without arriving 
at the conclusion that they had a most inadequate appreciation 
of the importance of the functions performed by money, and 
that, having studied in their closets the laws of nature, they 
forgot to verify their conclusions by studying the operations 
of the world around them. 

§ 4. In thus examining the doctrines of the earlier English 
writers on money, we have, in effect, examined those of the 
Ricardo-Malthusian scKool of the present day, Messrs. McCul- 
loch and Mill differing little from Messrs. Hume and Smith. 
Mr. Mill quotes, approvingly, the ideas of Hume as to the 
effect that would result from having every person in- a nation 
to " wake and find a gold coin in his pocket," suggesting, 
however, that we might better suppose "that to every pound, 
or shilling, or penny in the possession of any one, another 
pound, shilling, or penny were suddenly added. There 
would," as he continues, "be an increased money demand, 
and consequently an increased money value, or price, for 
things of all sorts. This increased value would do no good 
to any one ; would make no difference, except that of 
having to reckon pounds, shillings, and pence in higher 
numbers." 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 359 

The experience of the world, however, shows, that in all 
countries the societary circulation becomes more rapid as the 
machinery of circulation is improved ; that human power, 
mental and physical, is then economized ; that consumption 
then more instantly follows production ; that land and labor, 
and the rude products of both, then rise in price ; that the 
higher products of a scientific agriculture, and finished com- 
modities of every kind, then fall in price ; and that men then 
grow in wealtli, power, morals, intellect, and all the other 
characteristics of an advancing civilization. 

J^urther in common with Hume, Mr. Mill has a slight 
opinion of the efficacy of money in the economy of society, it 
being, as he thinks, " intrinsically" most " insignificant," "ex- 
cept in the character of a contrivance for sparing time or 
labor." In that character, precisely, it is, that it is impor- 
tant, more being done in that way by a single hundred 
thousand dollars' worth of money than by tens of millions' 
worth of ships, canals, and railroads. " Insignificant," as it 
is, it has a value in the eyes of man, resulting, as he thinks, 
from an erroneous habit of regarding money "as a synonym 
of wealth ;" and "more especially when borrowing is spoken 
of" This, in his opinion, is a grievous error, that which 
"one person lends to another," as well as " the wages, or 
rent, he pays to another," not being mere money, " but a 
right to a certain value of the produce of the country, to be 
selected at his pleasure; the lender having first bought this 
right, by giving for it a portion of his capital." Hence, as 
he says, "the loan market is called the money market;" and 
the equivalent given for the use of capital, or, in other words, 
interest, is not only called the interest of money, but, by a 
grosser perversion of terms, "the value of money." Here, 
as the reader will perceive, he is in perfect accordance with 
a distinguished French economist to whom reference has 
before been made. 

The correction of the error of this passage is, as we think, 
to be found within itself. The borrower, or the rent-receiver, 
can " select at his pleasure of the produce of the country," 
being thus enabled to command cloth, iron, books, and the 
service of men of every rank in life, from the pauper to the 
peer. What gives him that wonderful power ? Money, and 
nothing else. However numerous might be his hats or coals, 
his engines or his acres, they would give him no such power, 
unless the facility of converting them into money were such 
as to warrant him in promising to deliver to the persoii» 



360 CHAPTER XXX. § 5. 

ai'ound him the various quantities of the precious metals to 
which thej miglit become entitled. The difficulty here, as 
almost everywhere, consists in the fact, that the power of 
money to promote the circulation of service is so wonderful 
as to cause them to imagine that it is the services and com- 
modities that pass, and not the money. As well, however, 
might they imagine that it was the words that passed over 
the wires of the telegraph, and not the electric spark itself. 
At each and every payment, whether by delivery of the coin, 
by transfer of a circulating note that will be paid on pre- 
sentation, or by draft upon a bank, it is the money itself 
that passes ; and that such is the case is proved by the 
stoppages that occur on every occasion of diminished con- 
fidence. 

All force is the result of motion, and the quantity of force 
obtained is dependent upon the quantity of motion wilhin a 
given time — a body moving at the rate of a hundred feet in a 
minute giving a thousand times the force that would be ob- 
tained from it if moving at the rate of ten feet only. Such 
being the case, one of two things must be true — either there 
is no universality in the laws of nature, or Mr. Mill is in 
error. That the latter is the case, would seem to be proved 
by the fact, that the movement of all advancing countries is 
in direct opposition to the theories of that school in w^hich 
originated the doctrines of over-population, and of the ulti- 
mate subjection of the laborer to the arbitrary will of those 
by whom the land might happen to be owned. 

§ 5. Distinguished among the economists produced by 
France, stands the late M. Bastiat, by whom we are assured 
that " it is quite unimportant whether there is much or little 
monr -' in the world. If there is much, much is used ; if there 
is little, little is required : that is all." 

This is but a repetition of the ideas of Hume and Smith, 
and, as in their case, it is opposed to the common sense of 
mankind. It was, indeed, the object of the tract from which 
the above passage has been derived, to prove the universal 
error of men in supposing that money was wealth, " real 
wealth" being to be found "in the abundance of things cal- 
culated to satisfy our wants and our tastes ;" and not in tiie 
possession of the machinery by aid of which those things 
were to be exchanged. Money would, however, seem to be 
quite as well fitted to satisfy both " our wants and our tastes" 
as is a ship, a railroad, a wagon, or a mill, which latter are 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 361 

certainly, even in the estimation of M. Bastiat himself, quite 
as much wealtli as is the bale of cotton carried in the ship, 
the load of wheat raised on the farm, or the package of cloth 
sent from the mill. The ship, the road, the mill, and money, 
are all portions of the machinery of exchange required by 
man ; and among them all there is none that performs so 
much service at so little cost as the last ; none whose posses- 
sion is so essential to that combination of effort which dis- 
tinguishes civilization from barbarism ; and hence it was that 
our author had occasion to discover, as he supposed, so much 
error in the common mode of thought in reference thereto. 
Among the whole community for which he wrote, he could 
not have found even a single man who did not connect the 
idea of increased life, activity, and motion with increase in 
the facility of obtaining money ; and motion is the cause of 
force, or power. Every farmer in France knows well that, 
when money is abundant, his produce moves rapidl}- from his 
hands, enabling him promptly to purchase clothing, manure, 
and instruments of cultivation calculated to increase his 
powers and those of his land. Equally well does he know, 
and feel, that when it is scarce he has to wait for purchasers, 
and that then the clothier, the collector of manures, and the 
maker of ploughs have to wait for him. Every laborer knows 
that vk'hen money circulates freely, he can readily sell his 
time, and be a good customer to the farmer; whereas, when 
it is scarce, he is forced to waste much time, his family then 
suffering for want of food, while the larmer suffers for want 
of a market. Men, as well as animals, have instincts; and 
when philosophers are led to teach what is opposed to all 
that those around them are led naturally to believe, it is 
because they studv nature in their closets, and not in her own 
great laboratory. 

M. Bastiat did not believe that the then recent discoveries 
of the Californian gold deposits would " add much to the 
comforts, conveniences, or enjoynients of the world at large." 
By augmenting the mass, they would, as he thought, "depre- 
ciate the whole." " The gold-seekers" would " become richer" 
at the expense of " those who were already in possession of 
gold;" all of which latter would "obtain a smaller amount 
of conveniences and comforts for an equal sum," the general 
result being a "displacement," and " not an augmentation, 
of wealth." 

It is thus distinctly denied that increase of wealth results 
from increase in the facility of obtaining the precious metals. 
31 



362 CHAPTER XXX. § 6. 

In the ordinary and common-sense modes of thought, wealth 
is power. Of all the thhigs yielded by the earth, money is 
that one whose possession confers most power ; and yet we 
are here required to forswear the belief in a fact the evidence 
of whose truth meets us at every instant. Had M. Bastiat 
given the subject more careful attention, he could scarcely, 
with his brilliant intellect, have failed to discover that, 
throughout the world nations were sulfering great incon- 
venience for want of the very instrument he so little valued ; 
that men were constantly being forced to resort to the primi- 
tive form of barter because of the want of a proper supply of 
tlie medium of excliange ; that labor was everywhere being 
wasted because of that deficiency in the societary motion so 
well described by M. Coquelin as existing in France ; that 
everywhere the man who had money was enabled to make 
much larger profits than he could do were it more abundant ; 
that he did this at the cost of the real parties to all exchanges, 
the producer and the consumer ; and that all these difficulties 
were to be, in part at least, removed by the increased facility 
of obtaining the machine by means of which, alone, rapidity 
of circulation could be produced. 

§ 6. In his recent work, M, Chevalier says, that " money 
is indispensable to man from the moment of his living in 
society;" and that "gold and silver have, from the earliest 
period, been chosen for the performance of its functions," as 
satisfying, more perfectly than any other commodity, the con- 
ditions required for a medium of exchange. He therefore 
lays it down as a principle, that, as in the case of all other 
commodities and things useful to man, "the diminution in 
the cost of producing the precious metals tends to the ad- 
vancement of civilization." The only form, however, in 
which its benefits would be exhibited, would, as he thinks, be 
"in an increased facility for obtaining ornaments or utensils 
of gold and silver, or plated with those metals." 

In all the transactions of life, a larger quantity of money 
would have to be given for the same commodity, prices of all 
things having increased in a corresponding ratio ; and this, 
so far from being an advantage, would prove, as regarded 
foreign commerce, a disadvantage. The foreigner would, as 
he thinks, "deliver his merchandize at the price of the 
country, while continuing to take that of the country at its 
price in the general market of the world ; and, under these 
"ircumstances, a nation would transact its business in the 



OF THE INSTRUMENT OF ASbOCIATION. 36S 

style of the great lord who, for a wager, sold on the Pont 
Neuf a piece of six francs for twenty-four sous." 

We have here again the doctrine of Hume, Smith, and of 
almost all other writers on this subject ; yet the world presents 
no single country in which such results have been produced, 
nor is it possible that there should be such an one. The 
people who produce money sell it, and they desire to sell as 
dearly as possible ; those who get it doing so, only by sup- 
jtlying cheaply the commodities required by those who have 
it to sell ; and more cheaply than any other country is able 
or willing to do. 

The whole question, and all the philosophy of money is, 
however, settled by the simple proposition, of universal truth, 
that i« the vatural course of human affairs, the prices of 
raw and finished commodities tend to approximate, the 
former rising as the latter fall, and the rapidity of the 
change increasing with every increase in the supply of those 
metals which constitute the standard with which prices need 
to be compared. 

Money is to society what food is to the body, the producer 
of motion. That food may give motion and produce power, 
it must be digested, and pass gradually through the very 
many miles of vessels by whose help it is gradually assim- 
ilated and made to yield support to the whole system — hav- 
ing done which, it passes gradual!}^ off, and chiefly in 
perspiration. So is it with the precious metals. That they 
may be the cause of motion and of power, it is required 
that they, too, be digested and passed gradually through 
the system — some portions being absorbed and retained, and 
others passing gradually and almost insensibly off, to be 
applied to the purchase of other commodities. In default of 
this, the supplies of California are, and can be, of no more 
service to these United States than would be supplies of food 
to a man suffering under dysentery, or cholera. The more 
the latter ate, the more certain would be the a[)proach of 
death ; and the more gold that comes from California the 
poorer do they become, under a system that closes the mills 
and furnaces of the country, that destroj'S the power of asso- 
ciation, and that causes an export demand for all the gold that 
they receive, every step in that direction being accompanied 
by an increase in the rapidity with which consumption fol- 
lows production in other countries, and a diminution therein 
among themselves. 



364 CHAPTER XXXI. § 1. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

OP PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 

gl. Man the ultimate object of all production. Production consists in the direction of 
natural forces to human service. Every act of consumption an act of production. 
Demand the cause of supply. 

g 2. Labor-power the most perishable of all commodities. Perishes, unless the demand 
follows instantly upon its production. Waste of labor one of the conditions of early 
society and scattered population. Errors of Mr. Malthus and his disciples. 

^ 3. Wages and productive power of England at various periods. 

J 4. The more continuous and steady the societary motion the more instant the demand 
for, and the economy of, labor. That continuity the test of real civilization. LiveiMity 
of employments indispensable to its existence. Waste of power in, and conseqiient 
poverty of, all purely agricultural countries. 

g 5. Errors of modern economists in regard to productive and unproductive labor. All 
labor productive which tends to enable man more thoroughly to direct the forces of 
nature to his service, wealth consisting in the existence of tliat power of direction. 
The greater the power of man over nature the more i-apid the progress of accumulation. 

§ 1. The ultimate object of all production is man, the being 
made in the likeness of his Creator, and endowed with facul- 
ties fitting him to obtain power over the material world. 

Production consists in the direction of the natural forces to 
the service of man. The earth gives back many grains in 
return for the single one given to her. This grain, however, 
being not yet the proper food of man, he converts it into 
meal, calling to his aid for that purpose the force of gravita- 
tion. Being not yet food, he seeks the assistance of friction, 
kindling a tire, and by the aid of chemical forces producing 
bread. The ultimate object of all this labor is that of pro- 
ducing in himself muscular power, to do which he must 
subject to decomposition the matter that nature had before 
composed. Passing it now through his stomach, it- is sub- 
jected to the action of other natural forces, and is thus 
prepared to enter again into the composition of wheat, 
potatoes, or any other class of food. We have here a 
never-ending round ; but where does production end, or con- 
sumption begin ? 

Throughout the material world production and consump- 
tion are but parts of the same operation, oxygen and hydrogen 
being consumed in producing water, and water being con- 
sumed in the reproduction of its elements. In both cases 
viotion is produced, giving /brce, the measure of which latter 
is to be found in the rapidity of the former. So it is in the 
physiological world, life being a constant round of production 



OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 365 

*nd consumption, and health and vigor being, throughout, 
attendant upon rapidity of digestion. So, too, in the social 
world, the power there existing being dependent, altogetiier, 
upon the circulation of the physical and mental efforts of the 
persons of whom it is composed. When this is rapid, the 
force is great ; when it is sluggish, the force is small. 

Association with his fellow-men, or commerce, is the indis- 
pensable condition of the development of human powers. 
Commerce consists in the exchange of physical or intellectual 
effort, each man with every other. The greater the number 
of men, the greater is the power of association and the more 
rapid the development of individual faculty, and the more 
does man acquire power over nature. That, in its turn, is 
attended with increased facility of conibination, and increased 
capacity for reducing to his service the wonderful natu''al 
forces. We have here the same unending round seen in the 
material world, by which production and consumption are 
oierged in each other, the employment, or consumption, of 
physical and intellectual effort producing new and larger 
development of material and mental powers. Here, as every- 
where throughout the world, supply is consequent on the 
existence of demand. 

§ 2. The one commodity at the disposal of all men, is mus- 
cular and mental effort, or labor -poxoei\ It is of all the most 
perishable, being lost forever if not profitably consumed ivt 
tlie very instant of production. It is, too, the one that least 
bears transportation, perishing in the act of being reftioved. 
The man who is a mile from his farm loses ten or twenty per 
cent, of his powers on the way to and from the scene of his 
daily labor. The quantity of human effort being dependent 
altogether on the demand for its production, demand is in 
like manner dependent on the power, on the part of others, 
to produce things to be given in exchange for it. The whole 
constituting but a single circle, the more rapid the motion 
the greater must be the inducement to the production of 
effort, and the greater the power of all to consume the com- 
modities produced. 

Unceasing waste of labor is one of the conditions of an 
early society and a scattered people. Where a whole popu- 
lation is limited to scratching the earth in quest of food, large 
numbers are required in harvest, for who.se labor there is no 
demand at other seasons. In England, at the close of the 
fourteenth century, v^'e read of 212 persons having been <!UJ- 



366 CHAPTER XXXI. § 3. 

ployed in harvesting 168 bushels of grain, an operation that 
could now with ease be accomplished by a single individual. 

The wages paid to reapers were 2d. and 3d. per day, 
without food, while weeders and haymakers had but a single 
penny. Were we, however, to estimate the wages during 
the year at this latter rate, we should even then greatly err, 
because employment was only occasional, leaving a large 
portion of the labor-power w^iolly without demand through 
the remainder of the year. In proof of this, we may take 
Ireland as she now stands, occupying a position analogous to 
that of England when this latter was accustomed to export 
Avool and import cloth. Tenpence per day, without food, is 
there the highest rate of wages, but 6d. is often willingly 
accepted. The ordinary rate is, however, 6d., with food. 

Small as is this latter, it would yet give 3s. a week with 
board ; and to him who, centuries hence, may study such 
subjects, it will appear difficult to reconcile even this with 
the picture of a nation "starving by millions." Examining 
the question, however, more closely, he would find that em- 
ployment, as a rule, had been only occasional; and that, so 
great had been the waste of labor that the actual rate of 
wages had not exceeded 4d. a day, out of which the laborer 
had been required to purchase food for his family and himself. 

In this fact, the temporary nature of employment, we find 
the key to that which has so misled economists in reference 
to English wages of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 
1444^ when the common laborer is said to have received two 
pecks of wheat per day, his allowance was 15s. per annum, 
with clothing of the value of 3s. 4d., and meat and drink. 
The cloth of russet, then used by laborers, sold at 2s. per 
yard ; so that the whole wages of the laborer did not exceed 
nine yards of cloth, and his own food. Where, then, could 
he obtain the means of support for a family, if so unfortunate 
as to have one ? 

§ 3. In the period that followed the Norman conquest, so 
many English slaves were exported, that the Irish market 
was glutted with them ; and as late as the reign of King 
John they might be found in almost every cottage in Scot- 
land. At the close of the thirteenth century, a slave and his 
family were sold for 13s. 4d. In England, a few herrings, a 
loaf of bread, and some beer, constituted the allowance in 
harvest. Meat and cheese were delicacies not then used by 
laborers. A valuation of the personal property at Colchester, 



OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 3G) 

then the tenth city of England, exhibits the condition of the 
tradesmen and artificers of that period, and enables us to 
form some idea of the situation of the common laborer. Ijj 
most houses a brass pot seems to have been the only ordinary 
utensil. A cobbler's stock in trade was valued at 7s.; a 
butcher's stock of salt meat at £1 18s. Almost every family 
had a small store of barlej'^ or oats, rye being little used, and 
wheat scarcely at all. Some families possessed a cow or 
two, but more had two or three hogs. In 1301 the valuation 
of household articles rarely exceeded 20s. Bread, beer, and 
milk, constituted the usual diet of the townsmen. In 1357 
appeared the Statute of Laborers, by which the wages of 
haymakers and weeders were fixed at 2d. per day, payable 
either in money or in wheat at lOd. per bushel, at the option 
of their employers. The effect of this option may be imagined, 
when it is known that in the fourteenth century wheat varied 
between 2s. and £4 per quarter. AVhen it was high, the 
laborers would be paid in money, which would not procure 
them food ; when low, they would receive corn, which would 
not purchase clothing. No person was to quit his village in 
search of work in summer, if he could obtain employment at 
the above wages, except the people of Stafi"ordshire, Lanca- 
shire, and a few other counties. Laborers were to be sworn 
twice a year to observe these regulations, offenders being 
punishable with imprisonment in the stocks. In 1360 this 
statute was confirmed by Parliament, and the observance of 
it enforced under penalty of imprisonment and burning on 
the forehead with a red hot iron. It was optional with the 
master to hire by the day or year, but the laborer was com- 
pelled to work for the statute wages by either the one or 
the other, at the pleasure of the employers. 

How far the latter availed themselves of this option may 
be seen from the fact that 250 reapers were employed to cut 
200 acres of corn. Harvest time over, no employment being 
obtainable, " many became staff-strikers, and wandered in 
parties of two, three, or four, from village to village ;" while 
great numbers "turned out sturdy rogues, and infested the 
kingdom with frequent robberies." In 1388 the wages of 
labor were again regulated, a plough-driver being allowed 
" 9s. per annum, with food, but without clothing, or other 
perquisite." Eden, in his History of the Poor, from whose 
work these facts are drawn, says that we may form an idea 
of the bad husbandry of the period, and the " consequent 
misery of the laborers," from the fact that five or six bushels 



368 CHAPTER XXXI. § 3. 

per acre was the usual yield of wheat. The population having 
been then less than two and a-half millions, the power of asso- 
ciation could have existed in but very slight degree. Towns 
and cities, however, were growing and employment was by 
slow degrees becoming more diversified, and those regulations 
merely prove the necessity felt by the great landlords for legal 
aid in compelling the laborers to accept from them a smaller 
remuneration than could be obtained elsewhere. The insur- 
rection of Wat Tyler followed close on the regulation last 
referred to. Half a century later. Parliament fixed the annual 
wages of a laborer at 15s., with meat and drink, and 3s. 4d. 
for clothing ; but that, in its turn, was followed by the insur- 
rection of Jack Cade. In the Wars of the Roses, the people 
generally sided with the House of York as opposed to the 
great landed proprietors, authors of these laws. 

In 1486 a new statute fixed the year's wages at 16s. 8d., 
with 4s. for clothing. So ineffectual, however, did this also 
prove, that twenty years later it was ordained that persons 
refusing to work were to be imprisoned, and every vagabond, 
" whole and mighty in body," was to be tied to the cart's tail, 
and whipped " till his body was bloody by means of such 
whipping." How numerous were these vagabonds, and how 
great the difficulty of obtaining employment, is evident from 
the fact, that out of a population of only three millions, there 
were executed in the reign of Henry VIII. no less than 
12,000 "great and petty thieves." 

Early in the reign of Edward VI. laws were passed by 
which it was enacted that "if any man or woman, able to 
work, should refuse to labor, and live idle for three days, he 
or she should be branded with a red hot iron on the breast, 
with the letter Y, and should be adjudged to be a slave, for 
two' years, of any person who should inform against such 
idler." Further, the master was to "feed his slave with 
bi'ead and water, or small drink, and such refuse meat as he 
should think proper," compelling " his slave to work, by beat- 
ing, chaining, or otherwise, in such work and labor (how vile 
soever it be) as he should put him to ;" adding thereto, tiiat 
"if he runs away from his master for the space of fourteen 
days, he shall become his slave for life, after being bn'mded 
on the forehead or cheek with the letter S. The punishment 
for running away a second time was death. The same statute 
provides that even "although there be no man which sliall 
demand such loiterers, yet justices of the peace shall be bound 
to inquire after such idle persons ; and if it shall appear that 



OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 309 

any such shall have been vagrant for three days, he sh:iH be 
branded on the breast with a V, made with a hot iron." A 
master was also authorized to "put a ring of iron round the 
neck, arms, and leg of a slave, for more surety in the keeping 
of him." Such was the condition of the people at a time 
when they are supposed by the advocates of the Ricardo- 
Malthusian doctrine " to have lived much in the same manner 
as husbandmen in the north of England did in the last century, 
or as the Scottish peasantry do in the present." 

A v^-riter in the reign of Elizabeth, when the population 
could not have exceeded three and a half millions, says : " the 
gentilitie commonly provide themselves sufficiently of wheaten 
bread for their own tables, wliilst their household and poor 
neighbors, in some shires, are forced to content themselves 
with rie or barleie ; yea, and in time of dearth, manie with 
bread made either of beans, peason, otes, or of altogether, and 
some acorns among." An eminent justice of Somersetsliire 
says, in 1596, that 40 persons had there been executed in a 
year, for robberies, thefts, and other felonies ; 35 burnt in the 
hand; 37 whipped; 183 discharged;" and yet that "the 
fifth part of the felonies committed in the country were not 
brought to trial," tlie magistrates having been awed by the 
threats of confederates, from executing justice on tlie offenders. 
Eden says truly, that " it is probal)le that these' disorders 
were, in a great measure, due to the difficulty of finding 
regular employment for the surplus hands not required in 
agriculture." 

Such was indeed the real cause of difficulty. England 
was still merely an agricultural country, exporting food, and 
importing manufactures from the wealthy countries bordering 
on the Rhine ; and in the absence of manufactures, agriculti^re 
could make but little progress. 

With the growth of population and wealth, cultivation has 
extended over the richer soils, with steady increase in the 
diversity of employments, and in the rapidity with which 
consumption and production have followed upon each other. 
Hence the product of agricultural labor has increased in a 
ratio greatly exceeding that of the growth of numbers. 

§ 4. Society, or commerce, consists in an exchange of ser- 
vices. Continuity in the demand for labor, rapidity in the 
circulation of services, growing commerce, are all but diflerent 
modes of expression for the same idea. 

The power to perform services is the consequence of a 



370 CHAPTER XXXI. § 4. 

consumption of capital in the form of food. If that power be 
not applied on the instant that it is produced, it is lost for- 
ever. The less promptly the demand follows the supply the 
greater, therefore, must be the waste. The more instant the 
demand the greater must be the economy of power, and the 
amount of force. 

Highest, therefore, amongst the tests of civilization, is that 
continuity in the isocietary motion which enables all to fi)id 
demand for their whole physical and mental powers; and 
that this may be produced, diversity of employments is the one 
indispensable condition. 

Comparing the various nations of the present day with 
each other, we obtain results similar to those obtained in 
reviewing the various stages of English history. India ex- 
hibits no demand for labor, and her people, therefore, sell 
themselves to slavery in the Mauritius. Ireland presents a 
scene of constant waste of labor-power; and her unhappy 
people, in search of harvest wages, abandon their native land 
where famine and pestilence reign supreme. In Portugal 
and Turkey mental and physical power abound, for which 
there is no demand. So is it in Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, and 
Buenos Ajn-es ; in all of which we find a state of facts corres- 
ponding with that observed in the earlier ages of English 
history, the laborer, even when nominally free, being there 
the mere slave of the man who owns the land, or who sup- 
plies food and clothing to those by whom it is tilled. 

Turning now to France, and Northern Europe generally, 
we find a state of things widely different, the circulation 
growing daily more continuous, the demand for labor-power 
following more rapidly upon its production, physical and 
mental faculty becoming more developed as it is more and 
more economized, and force increasing from hour to hour. 

To what cause ma}^ these great differences be ascribed ? 
To this and this alone : the first naaied of these countries fol- 
low in the lead of England, adopting for their guides those 
economists who hold that the return to agricultural labor 
tends naturally to decline ; that agriculture is therefore the 
least profitable of human pursuits ; that the proportion of the 
land-owner tends naturally to increase, and that of the laborer 
to diminish ; the tendency in these directions increasing as 
matter tends more and more to take upon itself the highest 
form of which it is capable — that of man. The others fol- 
low in the lead of France, adopting the policy of Colbert, 
which looks to placing agriculture at the head of all pur- 



OP PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 371 

suits, and seeking the attainment of that object by means of 
measures tending to raise the price of labor and land, while 
reducing that of all the commodities required for the con- 
sumption of the land-owner and the laborer. The first place 
trade at the head of the pursuits of man, while the last seek 
the extension of commerce. 

England herself is the birth-place of the theory of over- 
population, invented to account for the enormous waste re- 
sulting from the want of continuous demand for human force. 
At one time, the mill-owner closes his doors in order to 
reduce the price of labor and its ruder products ; at another, 
long-continued strikes ruin both workman and employer. 
Trading centralization is there almost perfect ; and centrali- 
zation and stability are totally inconsistent with each other.* 

§ 5. Modern political economy has sought to limit the sig- 
nification of the word wealth to those material commodities 
which may be bought and sold ; limiting, too, the science 
itself to the determination of the laws which govern man in 
trading operations. This has arisen from the fact, that its 
professors have never properly discriminated between the 
two very distinct classes into which society is so much 
divided : the one desiring to eiiect exchanges with their 
fellow-men, and thus to maintain commerce; the other seek- 
ing to effect exchanges /or them, and thus to exercise trade. 

Extension of the first, as has been seen, brings with it con- 
tinuity of motion ; whereas, increase in the power of the last 
tends to produce what are called " gluts," the trader seeking 

* " Between our Black West Indies and our White Ireland, be- 
tween these two extremes of lazy refusal to work, and of famishing 
inability to find any work, what a world have we made of it, with 
our fierce Mammon-worships, and our benevolent pliilanderings, 
and idle, godless nonsenses of one kind and another 1 Supply-and- 
demand, Leave-it-alone, Voluntary-principle, Time will mend it: 
till British industrial existence seems fast becoming one huge 
poison-swamp of reeking pestilence, physical and moral ; a hideous 
living Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive ; such a Curtius' 
gulf, communicating with the Nether Deep, as the sun never saw 
till now. . . . Thirty thousand outcast needlewomen working 
themselves swiftly to death; three million paupers rotting in 
forced idleness, helping said needlewomen to die ! these are bu* 
items in the sad leilger of despair. Thirty thousand wretclied 
women, sunk in that putrifying well of abominations ; they have 
oozed in upon London from the universal Stygian quagmire of 
British Industrial life ; are accumulated in the well of ihe conceru 
to that extent." — Carlyle : L tter-Day Panqihlets. 



3t2 CHAPTER XXXI. § 5. 

to ciiiise ibose changes of prices which enable him to buy at 
low prices and sell at high ones. Some economists have 
imagined this difficulty of selling to be a consequence of over- 
production, when the real cause was to be found in obstacles 
in the way of circulation. Over-population and over-pro- 
duction thus combine for the formation of that which is most 
appropriately termed "the dismal science." 

From the same omission has resulted considerable difference 
as to the meaning of the word production, of which no clear 
definition has ever yet been given. By nearly all economists 
it is limited to the consideration of those material things 
which maybe made the subject of purchase and sale. Much 
diversity of opinion has, therefore, existed as to the division 
of society into productive and unproductive classes. Among 
the latest exponents of the modern school is Mr. J. S. Mill, 
whose views are given in the following passage :■ — 

" All labor is, in the language of political economy, unpro- 
ductive, which ends in immediate enjoyment, without any 
increase of the accumulated stock of permanent means of 
enjoyment. And all labor, according to our present definition, 
must be classed as unproductive which terminates in a per- 
manent benefit, however important, provided that an increase 
of material products forms no part of that benefit. The labor 
of saving a friend's life is not productive, unless the friend is 
a productive laborer, and produces more than he consumes. 
To a religious person, the saving of a soul must appear a far 
more important service than the saving of a life ; but he will 
not, therefore, call a missionary or a clergyman productive 
laborers, unless they teach, as the South Sea missionaries 
have in some cases done, the arts of civilization in addition 
to the doctrines of religion. It is, on the contrary, evident 
that the greater number of missionaries or clergymen a nation 
maintains, the less it has to expend on other things : while 
the more it expends judiciously in keeping agriculturists and 
manufacturers at work, the more it will have for every other 
purpose. By the former, it diminishes, coeteris paribua, its 
stock of material products ; by the latter, it increases them." 

Truth being su^iple, simple ideas are generally true. Com- 
plex ideas, therefore, may generally be regarded as the 
reverse, the progress of man in knowledge being always in 
the direction of obtaining expressions that, by reason of their 
perfect simplicity, suffice for covering all the facts. Such is 
not here the case. The missionary is productive, if " he add 
the arto uf civilization to the doctrines of religion," that is, 



OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMI'TION. 37o 

if lie carry to tlie people of the South Sea Islamls ploll^•hs 
and harrows, and other instruments calculated to enable tlunn 
to increase their stock of material products. Contentint^ 
himself, on the contrary, with laboring to produce in his flock 
a higher feeling of their responsibility towards their fellow- 
men, and towards their Creator, he is to be regarded as 
unproductive, even though the eflFort result in making sobri- 
ety, industry, and economy, the normal condition of a little 
community in which there had before reigned turbulence, 
idleness, and waste. Again, the labor of saving the life of a 
man is unproductive; whereas, that devoted to increasing 
the supply of hogs is productive. The painter is produc- 
tive when he paints a picture; but unproductive when 
he teaches hundreds of others to make pictures equal to 
his own. Fourcroy and Chaptal, Davy and Berzelius, 
creators of science, were unproductive ; but the apothe- 
cary, who by means of their discoveries is enabled to make 
a paper of seidlitz powders, is productive. Watt, who taught 
us how to avail ourselves of steam, and Fulton, from whom 
we learned to make it available for the purposes of transpor- 
tation, were unproductive ; while the man who makes steam- 
engines and steamships is productive. The more missionaries, 
the more Fourcroys, Chaptals, Watts, or Fultons, a nation 
maintains, "the less," we are here assured, "it will have to 
expend on other things ;" whereas, the more it converts its 
people into mere agriculturists and manufacturers, " the more 
it will have for every other purpose !" Such is the strange 
result to which the grossly material character of the doctrines 
of the Ricardo-Malthusian school has led a writer so de- 
servedly occupying one of the highest positions among the 
economists of Europe. 

That labor is productive which tends to enable man more 
thoroughly to direct the forces of nature to his service, the 
power so to do constituting wealth. Such is the effect of 
the efforts of the missionary, of the man who saves his 
neighbor's life, of Fulton and Watt, Fourcroy and Berzelius ; 
and the more such men a nation maintains the more it will 
certainly have "to expend on other things," the more rapidly 
will consumption follow production, and the greater will bo 
the power of accumulation. 
32 



374 CHAPTER XXXII. § 5. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

OF ACCUMULATION. 

1 1. Po"wer of accumulation exists in the ratio of the rapidity of tbe circulation. Capital 
the instrument by means of which man is enabled to direct the natural forceo t" hi* 
service. Power of association grows as he obtains increased command over the instru- 
ment. 

g 2. Movable capital declines in its proportions as compared with that which is fixed, 
that decline being an evidence of advancing civilization. Centralization produces the 
reverse effect. Increase of movable capital in all the present free-trade countries. 

i 3. Errors of modenTecononusts in regarding savmg us the cause of the growth of capital. 

§ i. That growth due to the economy of human efl'ort. That economy a consequence of 
diversification of employments, and consequent combination of action. 

§ 5. Errors of Adam Smith in regard to the origin of capital. 

2 6. Chief difficulty of social science. Summary of the definitions thus far given in the 
present work. 

§ 1. Consumption and production being always equal, 
how, it may be asked, can there be accumulation ? To this 
it may be answered, that the power of accumulation depends 
entirely on the rapidity with which consumption follows upon 
production. 

The food consumed by Crusoe was capital, obtained by 
means of human effort. Did it then cease to be capital ? 
Certainly not. On the contrary, it had assumed a higher 
form, that of mental and physical force. Next, it reappeared 
in the form of a bow, to the construction of which such force 
had been applied. Reappearing once again in the form of 
increased supplies and higher quality of food, and thus 
enabling him to devote more time and mind to the study of 
nature and her powers, it promotes the further accumulation 
of capital in the form of that higher intelligence by means of 
which he compels wind and water to do his work, thus ob- 
taining that masteiy over nature which constitutes wealth. 
Capital iii the inatrument by means of ivhich that maatery is 
acquired, whether existing in the form of food, of physical 
or mental force, of bows, canoes, ships, lands, houses, mills, 
or furnaces. Every increase of command over the instru- 
ment is attended by corresponding increase in the power of 
association, in the development of individual faculties, and in 
the power of further accumulation. 

§ 2. The tendency towards improvement is in the ratio of 
the increase o^ fixed, as compared with circulating, capital. 



OF ACCUMULATION. 375 

Witli every swamp drained, every new mine opened, every 
bed of marl worked, every new water power made to laijor 
in the service of man, every new development of the wonder- 
ful forces of nature, the home has greater attractions, the 
family is more enabled to revolve around its own centre, the 
township acquires greater individuality, and the revolution 
of the various societary bodies becomes more continuous, 
vvicii constant increase of the societary force. 

Centralization, on the contrary, tends to increase the pro- 
portion of movable, while diminishing that of fixed, property. 
The great landholder compels the weak to labor for him, 
holding men and women as mere chattels, to be bought and 
sold in open market. Land is then, as now in India and 
Carolina, nearly valueless. The products of labor then pass 
through the hands of the traders in men's services on their 
way towards distribution. In this state of things nearly all 
property is purely personal, as we see to be the case in the 
cotton States. 

The warrior-chief imposes lieavy taxes on his subjects, ap- 
plying to the support of armies what his people would other- 
wise have fixed in the form of improvements on their little 
farms. 

The trader opposes all exchanges not made through him- 
self, knowing that the more he can separate the producer 
from the consumer the greater will be the quantity of goods 
waiting demand, the larger iiis proportion of their price, and 
the greater his power to purchase ships and cannon with 
which to enforce submission to his demands. 

The western settler obtains land for little money, but his 
horses, cattle, wagon, and furniture, cost him much. Obliged 
to send his produce to a distant market, he pays for the use 
of wagons, horses, cars, and ships; and the cost of all this 
circulating cai)ital prevents increase in the value of his land. 

Tlie capital of England, in the days of the Plantagenets, 
consisted in large proportion of its flocks and herds. The 
markets being distant, produce accuuiulated in one part of 
the kingdom, while in another men perished for want of food. 
Land and man were cheap, but cloth was dear. Now, the 
value of fixed property certainly thrice exceeds that (jf float- 
ing capital ; and tliis in despite of a policy based on tiie idea 
that ships, wagons, and other machinery of trade, are more 
profitable than land, the machinerv of production. 

Looking to Ireland, India, Portugal, or Turkey, countries 
whose policy tends towards giving power to the trader, we 



376 CHAPTER XXXII. § 3. 

see a growing dependence on floating capital, attended by a 
rlecline in the value of labor and land ; while in Belgium and 
Germany we see the proportion of movable capital diminish- 
ing, the value of labor and land meanwhile growing with 
great rapidity. 

The policy of these United States having usually tended to 
the exhaustion of the land and the dispersion of their people, 
it has, as a rule, been adverse to the creation of fixed property. 
Again and again have mills and furnaces been built, and 
mines been sunk ; but only to produce the ruin of those by 
whom such works have been created. Nowhere is so much 
capital applied to education ; but nowhei'e has there been 
exhibited a more pertinacious determination to prevent the 
application of the faculties thus developed to any pursuit 
other than those of law, medicine, speculation, and trade. 
As a consequence, the unfixed property is to the fixed as 
3 to 5 ; being a larger proportion than in any other com- 
munity claiming to rank as civilized. 

§ 3. We are told, however, that " it is only by means of 
saving that fortunes are created or increased." 

Were this so, we should look for the most rapid increase 
of capital to those countries in which saving is most practised ; 
yet is it precisely there that it grows most slowly. The Irish 
laborer is noted for his saving habits, as are the Laplander 
and the Hindoo. In early English and Scotch history we 
see families saving a supply of food, because of the uncer- 
tainty of getting more. In India, sovereigns save large sums 
of money by way of providing against any deficiency of 
revenue. The Castilian saves his food in a silo ; and the 
savage of the West in a cache. The mistress of the house 
saves water in a cistern, when the supply is uncertain ; but 
ceases to do so when the river is made to find the way to the 
ocean through her own and her neighbor's dwellings. 

It is where there is least circulation that saving is most 
resorted to, and there the waste is greatest. Societary motion 
then scarcely at all exists, the faculties remain latent for 
want of demand for their employment, and all must seek 
to save if they would continue to live. Circulation being 
established, capital rapidly accumulates, the demand for 
physical or mental power stimulates the faculties that had 
been latent, and every increase in that demand cajses an in- 
crease in the value of man, and in the rapidity of the growth 
of wealth. 



OF ACCUMULATION. 37 7 

The construction of a railroad increases capital, because; 
by diminishing the waste attendant on effecting changes of 
place, it gives a money value to land. The \voollen.<i-mill 
does the same, because it enables the farmers to send their 
wool and corn to market in the form of cloth. The opening 
of a mine, and the erection of a furnace, give value to land 
and labor by creating that diversity of employment which 
causes rapidity of circulation, this rapidity, in its turn, caus- 
ing still more rapid increase of capital. 

§ 4. To acquire power over nature being the great object 
of man, the more it is attained, the less is the value of the 
commodities he needs, and the greater is his own. To obtain 
power there must be association. The great obstacle to as- 
sociation being the necessity for effecting changes of place, 
the more this is removed the greater is not only man's present 
power, but his capacity for further progress. 

The spring being distant, he calls to his aid the jug, the 
cask, the wagon, each diminishing the value of water; until 
with the growth of population he is enabled, ovce for all, to 
construct an aqueduct and make water cheap as air. 

The Indian path being bad, he determines, once for all, to 
make a road ; this is followed by the turnpike, the canal, the 
railroad ; each in turn facilitating the construction of its 
more perfect successor, until merchandise is at length trans- 
ported at so small a cost that land and labor are immensely 
increased in value. 

The school-house being distant, his children must either 
dispense with education or waste much time upon the road. 
He proposes, therefore, to his neighbors, that they shall, once 
for all, give their time to the construction of a school-house ; 
and now instruction declines so much in value that ten times 
as many children can profit by it. 

The market being distant, he is taxed daily for the cost of 
sending his wool and corn to be exchanged for iron. He 
therefore proposes to his neiglibors that they shall, once for 
all, unite to build a furnace, ihe lal)orers in which may eat 
tlie corn which they now carry to a distant market, thus ter- 
minating, at once and forever, the necessity for transpor- 
tation. 

Iron being obtained, he next suggests that steam can as 
well be made to spin and weave cotton in their own neigh- 
borhood as elsewhere; all that is required being that they 
should, once for all, join to put up a house, and to bring 



378 CHAPTER XXXII. § 4. 

from abroad a little machinery, and vlie skill required for 
working it. Further, he says to them: "We are ourselves 
unemployed for more than half our time, and our children are 
almost entirely so. Though unfit for the labors of the field, 
they could perform the lighter work of tending the operations 
of a mill. Again, the minds of our people remain unde- 
veloped ; let us have them taught, and we shall soon obtain 
machinists of our own. We waste, daily, the powers of earth 
and air for want of little machines that would enable us to 
use ihem ; we waste the faculties of our people, because there 
is no demand for them ; we waste great part of our produce 
in feeding the horses and men who carry the rest to market, 
exhausting the soil, because that market is so distant. Let 
us then, once for all, combine to stop this waste. With 
every step we make in this direction we shall offer new in- 
ducements for carpenters and masons, printers and teachers, 
to come and eat the food which we now carry to a distant 
market, and we shall be enabled to improve our machinery. 
Commerce thus will increase among us, with increase in the 
fiocietary motion, and in the value and the happiness of man.'' 

The object here sought is, in the words of an eminent 
French economist, M. de Fontenay, that of " suppressing, by 
means of a certain quantity of labor once performed, a certain 
portion of current labor and annual expense thai would other- 
wise re-appear periodically, and for an indefinile period of 
time.'''' 

Such was the object sought by Colbert, to whom France 
has been indebted for the system which has increased to an 
enoi'mous extent her collieries, furnaces, and workshops, 
raised so greatly the value of her land, and doubled, or even 
trebled, the power of her laborers to command supplies 
of food. 

Directly the reverse of this, as the reader sees, is the doc- 
trine lying at the foundation of the system that would make 
of Britain the workshop of the world ; that, for the mainten- 
ance of which we are taught that man begins everywhere on 
the rich soils, old communities being forced to resort to poorer 
ones, with daily diminution in the demand for labor. To the 
farmers and planters of Brazil and the United States it says : 
" Cultivate your rich soils, and leave us to our poor ones. 
Labor being cheap with us, we can manufacture more 
cheaply than you can do. Do not, therefore, once for all, 
build mills and furnaces ; continue year after year to expend 
your labors in carrying produce back and forth ; continue to 



OF ACCUMULATION. 3T9 

exhaust your land : continue to have no combination of effort 
among yourselves ; and you will grow rich. The time, how- 
ever, will arrive when you will be forced to cultivate the poor 
soils, and then you will be troubled with over-population. 
Wages falling, you may then be enabled to accumulate the 
capital required for entering into competition icilhus; that 
ii<, the poorer you become, the greater will be your power." 

Such is the doctrine that is based upon the idea of trade 
being the first pursuit of man. Under this system, Ireland- 
wastes, weekly, more labor than would, if applied once for 
all, give her the machinery that would enable her to make a 
domestic market for all her food and all her labor; Portugal 
and Turkey waste daily more muscular and intellectual power 
than would, if applied once for all, give their people machinery 
for making all the cloth they now 'consume. Under it, India 
has seen her children condemned to remain idle when ihey 
would desire to work; to relinquish their rich soils, and per- 
mit their cities to go to ruin ; to forego the advantages of 
domestic commerce, and become dependent altogether on 
the chances of trade with a people distant from them and 
seeking only to live at their expense. 

§ 5. The error above referred to, in regard to the source 
to which we must look for the power of accumulation, pre- 
sents itself in this Wealth, of Nations, in which we find our- 
selves assured by Dr. Smith that "parsimony, and not 
industry, is the immediate cause of increase of capital." It 
is, however, merely the reduction into words of the general 
idea prevailing amcmg the much degraded portions of the 
human race. 

Alan seeks to obtain power over nature, and as that end is 
more and more attained fortunes augment, and parsimony 
tends to pass away. Arkwright and Watt obtained power, by 
means of which they accumulated fortunes while doubling the 
value of the land of Britain. Was this the result of " saving ?" 
Cliaptal, Fourcroy, and Berthollet, by mastering great natural 
forces, contributed largely to the vast increase in the landed 
capital of France. Morse, seizing the power to direct elec- 
tricity, acquired fortune. Fulton taught mankind to apply 
steam to transportation, thus adding countless millions to 
the price of land. Scott and Goethe found wealth in the 
power to amuse their countrymen. What, in all these cases, 
savors of parsimony ? Wealth consisting in the power to 
direct the forces of nature, the more ra[)id its growth the 



380 CHAPTER XXXII. § 6. 

more does " parsimony," the feeling of the slave, tend to dis- 
appear from among the qualities of the being made in the 
image of his Creator, — man. 

§ 6. The chief difficulty M'ith which social science has had 
to contend, has been the want of clear definitions of the terms 
in use. Those furnished in the present work being, as it is 
believed, universally true, should cover the whole ground, 
removing the obstacles to a clear understanding of what was 
really meant by any writer who used the various terms. 

The whole may now thus be stated : — 

Utility is the measure of man's power over nature. 

Value is the measure of nature's power over man, of the 
resistance she offers to the gratification of his desires. 

Wealth consists in the power of man to command the 
always gratuitous service of nature. 

Production consists in directing those forces to the service 
of man. 

Capital is the instrument by help of which the work is 
done, whether existing in the form of land, ships, wagons, 
houses, mental or physical force. 

Trade consists in the performance of exchanges for other 
persons, being the instrument used by — 

Commerce, which consists in the exchange of services, pro- 
ducts, or ideas, by men, and with their fellow-men. 

As the power of association grows utility increases, while 
values decline. 

As the value of commodities declines, that of man increases, 
with increase in the development of individuality, and in the 
security of person and of property. 

As person and property become more secure, men and 
capital tend to become more fixed, and a smaller proportion 
of both remains in the floating state. 

As men and capital become fixed, and the powers of nature 
are more and more developed, there is increased tendency 
towards the creation of local centres, and towards the estab- 
lishment of the same beautiful system by means of which the 
harmony of the universe is maintained. 

As local centres increase in number and attraction the 
power of association steadily augments, with diminution in 
the necessity for the services of the trader, increase in the 
power of production, in the growth of cap'tal, and in the 
rapidity of its circulation^ — with corresponding increase of 
commerce. 



OP CIRCULATION. 381 



CHAPTER XXXIIL 

OF CIRCULATION. 

J 1. Little circulation of either land or man, in the earlier stages of society. Large pro- 
portion then borne by movable to flxeri capital. 
2 2. Circulation increases in its rapidity in the direct ratio of the tendency of capital to 

become fixed and inimovuble. 
§ 3. The more rapid the circulation the greater the tendency towards the creation of local 

centres, towards the development of individuality, and towards having society assume 

its natural form. 
2 4. Circulation becomes more rapid as employments become diversified, and land becomes 

divided. Social phenomena exhibited by France. 
g 5. Tendency of British policy to promote increase in the proportions of movable capital 

at the expense of that which is llxed. Consequent sluggishness of circulation in all the 

countries subject to it. 
g 6. Circulation becomes more rapid in the ratio of the tendency towards approximation 

in the prices of rude products and finished commodities. 
J 7. Tendency of the British colonial system to produce stoppage of the circulation. Its 

effects, as e.xhibited in the p.ast and present of these United States. 
2 8. The more rapid the circulation the more equitable the distribution. Identity of the 

physical and social laws. 

§ 1. In the early ajres of society land is wholly valueless. 
Men then hunt and fish, their only property consisting of 
bows and arrows, skins, and the little food they may have 
saved in summer as provision against the wants of winter. 
Later, in the shepherd state, flocks constitute their only 
wealth. Land being superabundant, it is unhesitatingly^ 
abandoned when the pasture becomes exhausted. The com- 
munity being still but nature's slave, of voluntary circulation 
tiiere is none, each of its members finding himself compelled 
to move when otiiers desire a change of place. 

In this condition of society it is that centralization most 
exists, the few who are strong of arm, or intellect, controlling 
the floating mass who, being poor, and often suffering for 
want of food, are always ready to follow in the train of men 
like Brennus, Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan, gladly aiding in 
stopping the societary circulation among others more ad- 
vanced in wealth and power than themselves. 

Later, they obtain by means of a rude cultivation increased 
supplies of food, small communities then appropriating land 
to be temporarily divided among its occupants, as was tho 
case in Gaul in the days of Caesar, and is now in Russia. 
As a rule, however, tiie strong have seized upon extensive 
tracts of land, compelling the weak to labor for them, and 
giving to the slave only such portion of the product as has 



S82 CHAPTER xxxin. § 2. 

seemed required for preserving him in working order. This 
being tlie barbarous condition of society, wealth consists in 
movables, and is reckoned by the number of beasts of burden 
called men, women, and children, as is now the case in Caro- 
lina, Brazil, and Cuba. Land being held in vast tracts it 
finds no circulation, and has little value. Man being then 
iield as property, he has no right of circulation among his 
fellow-men. 

Population and wealth further increasing, the blacksmith, 
the carpenter, the miller, and the trader, come together to 
form the nucleus of the future town ; and now land beconies 
divided, and is held in absolute ownership, or on payment of 
yearly compensation for its use. 

The town increasing, land becomes divided, exchangeable 
property and person become more secure, land acquiring 
value, and men becoming more free. Towns now become 
places of refuge, men who have been held as slaves seeking, 
in association with their fellow-men, the free exercise of the 
faculties by which they are distinguished from the brute. 

With every stage of progress, individuality becomes more 
and more developed — men who had been limited to the single 
pursuit of tillage, now becoming carpenters and blacksmiths, 
masons or millers, and circulating freely among each other. 
The various products of the earth becoming gradually util- 
ized, the value of commodities declines while that of land 
and man still further rises, the slave becoming free, his late 
master becoming rich, and the beautiful harmony of natural 
laws being thus established. 

§ 2. Circulation becomes more rapid as men become more 
free. Men become more free as land becomes more and more 
divided. Land becomes divided as wealth accumulates, and 
land, itself, acquires value. Tlie, rapidity of circulation is, 
therefore, in the direct ratio of the tendency in capital to 
become fixed and immovable. 

In England, in the days of the Plantagenets, the descendants 
of Norman knights held serfs who counted by thousands, 
and the Church was chief proprietor; whereas, in the days 
of Adam Smith, the proprietors were 200,000 in number. 
Landed property now circulated, with constant increase in 
the rapidity of the circulation of service. While land con- 
tinued locked up, but few exchanges could be made without 
the intervention of its proprietors, owners of the soil, and 
of the serf who occupied it ^.s it became divided, the class 



OF CIRCULATION. 383 

of free proprietors increased in number and in power, gradu- 
ally freeing tliemselves from the obligation to pay rent, as 
well as from the limitation to the master's mill and oven 
when desiring to convert the product into bread. The work- 
man of the towns, too, exchanged directly with his brother- 
workmen, and the restraints upon the circulation of land, 
labor, and its products, thus steadily diminishing, the socie- 
tary motion became from year to year more rapid, with 
growing tendency to the development of the treasures of the 
earth, and to the creation of local centres of activity by 
means of which the centralizing effects of great landed 
estates, and of great trading cities, were to be furthei 
neutralized. 

From age to age we mark a growing tendency towards in- 
creasing the divisibility, and thus quickening the circulation 
of fixed property. The stockholders of the Kast India Com- 
pany are, in effect, proprietors of all the land of Hindostan, 
the right to a share in which is transferred by a simple entry 
on the books, and the delivery of a new certificate. Turn- 
pikes and railroads are as fixed property as is the land on 
which they are laid ; yet are they divisible into the smallest 
shares, the ownership of which is as readily transferred as is 
that of a horse. Mines are opened at vast expense, the pro- 
perty in which is held in transferable shares. Till now, the 
English circulation has been retarded by the maintenance of 
a system of barbarous liabilities handed down from olden 
time ; but the general sentiment has recently found expres- 
sion in the passage of an act of Parliament, in virtue of which 
mills, factories, and furnaces, may be built, and other descrip- 
tions of fixed property created, the ownershij) of which may 
be divided among thousands of persons, circulating through 
society with a facility equal to that which attends the bag 
of cotton and the circulating note. Each step in this 
course of progress is attended, necessarily, with an increase 
in the proportion of fixed property, and in the facilities of 
commerce. 

§ 3. The conclusions at which we now arrive may be thus 
stated : — 

That, in the early period of society all property is movable, 
land being wliolly destitute of exchantrt al)le value: 

That, of what is then regarded as property the larger por- 
tion consists of men, women, and children, who are denied 
the power to determine for tln>mselves fur whom they will 
work, or what shall be their rew;>rd : 



384 CHAPTER XXXIII. § 4. 

That, as wealth augments and numbers increase employ- 
ments become divei'sified, with constant increase in the power 
to reduce to cultivation the richer soils-: 

That land acquires a money value and becomes divided, its ' 
power of circalation increasing geometrically as the division 
proceeds arithmetically : 

That man acquires value as the products of his labor lose 
it, increase in the proportion of fixed to movable property 
thus keeping steady pace with the growing freedom of man, 
and with the increase in the rapidity of the societary circu- 
lation : 

That thus, the more that capital becomes fixed, the more 
rapid is the circulation of property of every description ; the 
greater the power of association ; the moi'e rapid the devel- 
opment of individuality ; and the greater the power of further 
progress : 

That, with every increase in the rapidity of circulation, 
local attraction becomes more and more complete ; with in- 
creased development of individuality in families, townships, 
and cities, and steady diminution of the centralizing forces 
by which societary action had previously been disturbed : and 

That, with every such increase, the community tends more 
and more to take upon itself that natural form in which 
strength and beauty are most combined, with constant increase 
in its own individuality, and in its power to associate with 
other communities on terms of strict equality. 

§ 4. Of all the countries of Europe, France has most labored 
to prevent the existence of that security, abroad or at home, 
without which there can be little growth of fixed capital. 
From the days of Charlemagne, her armies have been in turn 
invading Spain, the Netherlands, Holland, Italy, and Ger- 
many ; and her waste of wealth in Asia, in the Middle Ages, 
has been almost paralleled in the present one by her cam- 
paigns in Russia, Egypt, and Algeria. 

To her was Europe mainly indebted for that perfection of 
anarchy, denominated the Feudal System, whose tendencies 
were towards consolidation of the land, enslavement of the 
people, and suppression of the societary circulation. Land 
having then but little value, money-changers, royal and ple- 
beian, reigned supreme, and nearly all the property of the 
Kingdom was movable. At the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, nearly the whole of the land was held by the Church 
and a few great nobles, paying no taxes, yet monopolizing 



OF CIRCULATION. 385 

all places of emolument and thus absorbing; the contributions 
of that portion of the population which cultivated their own 
property; while constant wars abroad required inceissant 
contributions of men, and a taxation so severe that it absorbed 
more than half the product of the soil. Under such circum- 
stances there could be little circulation, and land remained 
uncultivated, while the people died of hunger. 

As the S3'stem of Colbert, however, came fairly into opera- 
tion, employment became more and more diversified, and with 
the increase of commerce, the division of land commenced, 
and agriculture steadily improved.* 

The Revolution sweeping away the Church and the nobility, 
their property, covering two-thirds of the kingdom, was now 
divided. The exclusive privileges of manufacturing corpora- 
tions following next, the obstacles to circulation were, thus, 
to a great extent, removed, the beneficial effects of the change 
exhibiting themselves in the facts, that, notwithstanding an 
enormous drain of money and men, the agricultural popula- 
tion increased one-third in the succeeding twenty years, the 
return to labor meantime so much increasing, that its mem- 
bers could now have bread every day in the year, and have a 
surplus for other purposes equal to two-thirds of the whole 
wages of 1788. 

Manufactures, during this period, steadily increased. The 
war, preventing all intercourse with England, operated as a 
protection to both farmer and artisan. Since then, statute 
law has continued the system, and the result is seen in the 
fact, that the price of land and labor is now increasing at a 
rate more rapid, probably, than that of an}^ other country of 
Europe. 

The free circulation of either is still, however, impeded by 
an excessive political centralization, which requires heavy 
taxation for the maintenance of fleets and armies. Land can 
neither be sold nor mortgaged without paying to the govern- 
ment an important portion of the proceeds. The octroi ob- 
structs the circulation between the cities and the countr\, 
while city traders enjoy monopolies tending to fill their 
purses at the expense of both producer and consumer. Hence 
the difficulty of finding consumers for the things produced. 

Division of property among children being provided for 

* The recent work of M. de. Tocqueville, The Ancient Regime, 
furnishes abundant correction of the erroneous impression, so gen- 
erally prevalent, that the division of the land of France is attribu 
table to the Revolution 



386 CHAPTER XXXIII. § 5. 

by law, it has been hence inferred that the population would 
multiply with such rapidity as effectually to repress all powei 
of accumulation. On the contrary, however, numbers in- 
crease but slowly, the process of division moving but little 
faster. 

The rapidity of circulation increases steadily, with extra- 
ordinary increase in the productiveness of agricultural laboi'. 
The first and most oppressive of all taxes being that of trans- 
portation, the tendency of agriculture towards improvement 
is always in the direct ratio of the emancipation of the land 
from its payment, that emancipation being to be effected 
only by the creation of a market near at hand. 

§ 5. In the days of Alfred, landed property was equally 
divided among the children of the English landholder. The 
Norman conquest bringing with it the law of primogeniture, 
before the lapse of half a century the circulation of property 
in the soil had almost ceased. Wealth and population, how- 
ever, growing, we find a constant tendency towards its re- 
establishment, the result' of which exhibits itself in the 
number of small proprietors living in the days of Adam 
Smith. 

Up to his time, the tendency had been towards re- 
moval of restrictions upon the domestic circulation, the right 
of citizens to leave the kingdom having remained almost un- 
touched. Thenceforward, however, the tendency was in an 
opposite direction, the prohibition of emigration having been 
followed up by various laws prohibiting the export of either 
machinery or mechanics. 

The war of 1756, which established the British power in 
India, had raised the national debt from 72 to 146 millions. 
The class of annuitants had, therefore, increased in due pro- ' 
portion to the growth of admirals, generals, and traders, all 
of whom desired that labor might be cheap, and man of little 
value. This new debt made a great addition to the amount 
required to be seized on its passage from the producer to the 
consumer, thus augmenting tlie proportion borne by floating 
to fixed capital, to the disadvantage of both land and labor. 
The wav of 1793 now following, the debt was again doubled, 
and now it was that the effect of a sluggish circulation of 
labor and its products became obvious in the vast increase 
of pauperism, the scarcity of food, the consolidation of the 
land, and the invention of the monstrous, unchristian, and 
unphilosophical doctrine of over-population. 



OF CIRCVLATION. 



387 



From that time to the present, British history is a constant 
record of efforts at increasing the proportion borne by float- 
ing to fixed capital The more ships needed, the larger the 
quantity of merchandize kept passing on the road, the longer 
the time elapsing between production and consumption, and 
the slower, conseqnenth', the cii'culation between the man 
wiio raises the food and him who requires to eat it, the 
greater, as it is held, must be the prosperity of all. As a 
necessary consequence, the little proprietor disappears and 
the hired laborer takes his place, the trader and the annui- 
tant becoming more and more masters of those who need to 
sell their labor. Inequality grows daily, the separation be- 
tween the highest and lowest portions of society becoming 
more complete as land becomes more and more consolidatecl, 
and more and more burthened with mortgages, entails, and 
settlements. The policy of the country being based upon 
the cheapening of raw materials, and those materials being 
always low in price in barbarous countries, the reader will 
readily see that every step in that direction leads towards 
barbarism. Therefore it is that it has given rise to the un- 
christian and unphilosophical doctrines of the Ricardo-Mal- 
thusian school. 

§ 6. The road to civilization lies in the direction of the ap- 
proximation of the prices of raw materials and finished pro- 



R A 8. 



LABOR. 



Land valtuUis. 



Freedom. 




Massachusetts. 



Land high in value. 



duets, that being always accompanied by a rise in the prices 
of labor and land, an increase in the proportion borne by fixed 
to floating capital, and an increase in the rapidity of circula- 



388 CHAPTER XXXIIl. § 7. 

tion. Such being the case, a polic}^ based upon cheapening 
the raw materials of manufactures — food, wool, and labor — 
should tend towards barbarism and slavery : that it does so, 
the reader will be satisfied in an examination of the preceding 
diagram : — 

Passing from left to right we find a steady rise in the prices 
of land and labor, a diminished necessity for the services of 
the trader, an extension of cultivation over the richer soils, 
an incessant activity of circulation, and an increase in the 
power of man, the free proprietor taking the place that first 
was occupied by the wretched being who had been slave to 
both nature and his fellow-man. This is the forward motion 
of the being made in the image of his Creator, and endowed 
with the distinctive faculties of man. 

Passing now from right to left we obtain the reverse of 
this, land declining in price and becoming consolidated, 
circulation declining and man becoming more and more en- 
slaved, the free population gradually disappearing, as fixed 
property declines in the proportion borne by it to that float- 
ing capital with which the trader works. This is the back- 
ward motion of the human animal treated of by the Ricardo- 
Malthusian schools ; the one that must be fed, that will 
procreate, and that needs the whip of the tax-gatherer to 
stimulate him to the proper exercise of the faculties with 
which he has been endowed. 

§ 1. The phenomena presented to view by these United 
States are those of consolidation of the land, extension of 
slavery, and decline of all their raw products, when com- 
pared with finished commodities. Why this is so we may 
now inquire. 

The colonial system had for its object a stoppage of circu- 
lation among the colonists, with a view to compel the export 
of raw materials, and their importation in the forms of cloth 
and iron. That such a policy tended towards the destruction 
of the value of both land and man was well understood by 
Franklin, according to whom it was "well known and under- 
stood that whenever a manufacture is established which 
employs a number of hands, it raises the value of lands in 
the neighboring country all around it, partly by the greater 
demand near at hand for the produce of the land, and partly 
from the plenty of money drawn by the manufactures to that 
part of the country. It seems, therefore," as he continues, 
"the interest of all our farmers and owners of lands to en- 



OF CIRCULATION. 389 

••ourage our young manufactures in preference to foreign 
ones imported among us from distant countries." Such was, 
tlien, the almost universal feeling of the country, and to this, 
far more than to the tax on tea, or the stamp act, the revolu- 
tionary movement was due. 

With the establishment of their independence, the necessity 
for submission to the system disappeared. The habit of sul)- 
mission continuing, however, its etFects are felt in the fact, 
that, with slight exceptions, the policy of the country has 
been directed towards securing markets for raw products, a 
proceeding resulting necessarily in exhaustion of the land, 
dispersion of the population, and stoppage of societary circu- 
lation. In despite of this, certain descriptions of manufac- 
tures have, at the North, grown slowly up ; but, in the 
Southern States, failure has attended almost every efl'ort in 
that direction, and they exhibit, everywhere, scattered popu- 
lations unable to combine their labors, and exhausting all 
their energies in the effort to reach a market. The power to 
combine having no existence, coal cannot be mined, nor can 
wool be spun. The smaller the bulk of the commodity, the 
less being the charge for transportation, the Virginia planter 
has found himself limited to the most exhausting of all 
crops — tobacco. He has lived, in fact, by the sale of the 
soil itself, and not by the product of his labor. 

Allowing Virginia, at the close of the Revolution, 600,000 
people, she should now have, excluding all allowance for im 
migratiors 4,000,000, or one to every ten acres ; and no one 
at all familiar with the vast advantages of the State, can 
doubt her capability of supporting more than thrice that 
number. Nevertheless, the total population, in 1850, was 
but 1,424,000 — the increase in twenty years having been but 
200,000, when it should have been 1,200,000. Seeking to 
know what has become of all these people, the reader may 
find them among the millions now inhabiting Alabama and 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Desiring next 
to know why they are there, the answer to the question may 
be given in the words : " They borrowed from the earth but 
they did not repay, and she expelled them." 

North Carolina is rich in lands, undrained and uncultivated, 
while coal and iron ore abound. Her area is greater than 
that of Ireland, and yet her population is but 868,000, hav- 
ing increased hut 130,000 in twenty years. In South Oaro- 
lina the cour.«'.e of things has been precisely the same with 
that described in reference to Virginia ; yet the State, say.s 



390 CHAPTER XXXIII. § 8. 

Governor Seabrook, has "millions of uncleared acres of un- 
surpassed fertility, which seem to solicit a trial of their powers 
from the people of the plantation States." * * * "In 
her borders," as he continues, "there is scarcely a vegetable 
product essential to the human race that cannot be furnished." 
Marl and lime abound, millions of acres of rich meadow-land 
remain in a state of nature, and "the sea-shore parishes," he 
adds, " possess unfailing supplies of salt mud, salt grass, and 
shell-lime." So great, nevertheless, has been the tendency 
to abandonment of the land, that, in the decade from 1830 to 
1840, the white population increased but 1000 and the black 
but 12,000 ; whereas the natural increase alone would have 
given at least 150,000. 

When men come together and combine their efforts, they 
are enabled to bring into activity all the vast and various 
powers of the earth, and they become free. When, on the 
contrary, they fly apart, the less becomes the value of labor 
and the freedom of man. British writers assure their readers 
that " the mode of agriculture usually coincident with the 
employment of slave labor is essentially exhaustive" — slavery 
thus being given as the cause of declining agriculture. As 
usual, however, cause and effect are here inverted, an ex- 
haustive agriculture being the real cause of slavery extension. 

The slower the circulation, the more is the tendency to- 
wards slavery ; and hence it is that slavery so much advances. 
That it may become otherwise, the planter must be compelled 
to pay his debts to the land; and that he cannot be. while 
obliged to resort to the distant market. Obvious as is this 
truth, distinguished Englishmen congratulate their country- 
men on the working of the free-trade system in destroying 
the domestic manufactures of Southern States, and thus com- 
pelling the export of cotton in its rudest form. But a few 
years since, Georgia promised to become a principal seat 
of the cotton manufacture for the world. Now, she exports 
her people so rapidly, that, with every natural advantage, her 
population has grown, in the last five years, but three per 
cent. Hence the existence of a domestic slave-trade that 
shocks the feelings of Christian men ; and hence, too, the 
discord between the Northern and Southern portions of the 
Union. 

§ 8. In the physical world motion is indispensable to the 
existence of force. Motion, itself, is a consequence of heat. 
So, too, the physical and sopial laws being one and the same, 



OF CIRCULATION. 391 

feiiould it be in tne societary world. Whence, h )wevcr, 
conies the heat to which its motion and its force are due ? 
The answer to this question is found in the important prin- 
ciple, recently so well established, that motion is the cause 
of heat, as heat, in turn, is the cause of motion. The more 
the motion, the greater is the heat ; and the greater the heat, 
the greater is the tendency towards acceleration of motion 
and of force. Desiring, now, to see the application of this 
simple principle to social science, the reader will do well to 
refer once more to the foregoing diagram. Doing this, he 
finds, on the left, a total absence of societary motion, of heat, 
and of force. Passing thence, gradually, towards the right, 
he finds a steady increase of all, until, at length, reaching the 
New England States, he finds more motion, and more heat, 
than in any other portion of the Western continent, and a 
larger amount of force. 

Throughout the world, human energy is developed in the 
ratio of the existence of differences among the people of 
whom the society is composed. " The more perfect a being, 
the more dissimilar," says Goethe, "are the parts." In 
Ireland, India, Turkey, Portugal, Jamaica, and Carolina, all 
the parts are alike ; and hence it is, that the potential energy 
of their people remains latent, that the circulation is sluggish, 
and that their men remain enslaved. In France, Germany, 
and Massachusetts, differences are numerous ; and hence it 
is, that the powers of their people become more developed 
from day to day, that the circulation becomes more rapid, 
and that men become more free. 

The more rapid the circulation throughout the physical 
body, the more perfect is the diHtrihution of force among its 
various parts, the higher is the health, and the greater is the 
force exerted. So, too, as we shall have occasion to see, is it 
in the social body — the distribution of the proceeds of labor 
liecoming more equitable, and societary action more healthy, 
in the precise ratio of increase in the circulation. Look 
viiere we may, we find evidence of the universality of those 
ureat laws instituted for the government of matter in all its 
forms — heat, motion, and force, being everywhere found in 
the precise ratio of the development of individuality, and of 
the power of association and combination. 

Turning, however, to Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo we find 
the reverse of this, man becoming more and more the slave 
of nature, as he grows in the power of combination with his 
fellow-men, and the distribution becoming more unefjual 
and unjust as communities more abound in wealth. 



392 CHAPTER XXXIV. § 1. 

CHAPTER XXXIY. 

OP DISTRIBUTION. 

I. — Of Wages, Profils, and Interest. 

J 1. Of wages, profits, and interest. Large proportian, in tlie early stages of society, a« 
signed to capital. 

g 2. Capitalist's proportion diminishes as the cost of reproduction declines. 

\ 3. General law of distribution Laborer's share increases in both its proportion and 
amount. That of the capitalist increases in amount, while diminishing in its proportion. 
Tendency of this law to produce equality in the condition of mankind. Its harmonj 
and beauty. 

§ 4. Universal application of the law that is here propounded. 

g 5. Labor's proportion increases as the piices of rude products and those of finished com- 
modities tend to approximate to each other. That tendency found in all the countries 
in which employments become more diversified. The reverse of this f lund in all the 
counti'ies that adopt the doctrines of the British school. 

g 6. Erroneous views of Adam Smith in regard to the natural law regulating the charge 
for the use of money. Absence of consist(!ncy in the ductiines of the Ricardo-Malthusian 
BchooL The value of man rises as the rate of profit, interest, and rent, declines. 

§ 1. Capital, the instrument by means of which man ac- 
quires power over the forces of nature, is a result of the 
accumulated mental and physical efforts of the past. The 
fibre of the wood which Crusoe required for his bow had 
been- at all times equally capable of renderiag him service ; 
but without an exercise of mental effort the bow would have 
remained unmade. Once made, its value was great, having 
been obtained at the cost of serious labor ; but its utility was 
Bmall, for it was capable of little work. 

Friday had no canoe. Had he desired to borrow that of 
Crusoe, the latter might have said ; " Fish abound at a little 
distance from the shore. Without the help of my machine 
you will scarcely obtain food enough for yourself; whereas 
with it you will, in little time, take enough to supply us 
both. Give me three-fourths of all you take, and the re- 
mainder shall be your own." 

Hard as this might seem, Friday would have accepted the 
offer, profiting of Crusoe's capital though paying dearly for 
its use. Reflecting, however, that if he can become owner 
of a boat he will then retain the entire product, he next 
makes terms with Crusoe for the use of his knife, and by its 
aid succeeds in making one. Both being now capitalists 
^heir conditions have much approximated, notwithstanding 
the advances that Crusoe may himself have made. At first 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 393 

Ill's wealtli stood at 10, wliile that of Friday was at 0. 
The former has now reached 40, hut the latter has attained 
to 10. Tendency towards equality is thus the certain result 
of that growth of wealth by means of which man is enahlcd 
to substitute mental for merely physical force. Every in- 
crease in his power over nature is but the preparation for 
greater progress in the same direction ; therefore, here as 
everywhere, it is the first step which is the most costly yet 
the least productive. Look where we may we find man 
passing from the weaker to the more powerful instruments 
of production, the poor settler using wood in the production 
of iron, though surrounded by mineral coal capable of per- 
forming thrice the service with half the labor. The more the 
capability of rendering service the greater is the resistance 
to be overcome, whether we desire to command the aid 
of things or of men. The laws of nature are thus, as we 
see, of universal truth. 

§ 2. The bow and the canoe enabling Friday to economize 
time, he gives his leisure to the construction of a knife and 
a sail ; and all combine to give him power to construct a 
house, the quantity of labor required for reproducing and 
increasing capital diminishing with every stage of progress. 
The first stone-knife had been the fruit of far more effort than 
is now required for making one of bronze, and yet the latter 
is by very far the more efficient instrument. The axe of stone 
has now no value, though its services had at first been held 
as equal to three-fourths of those of the man who used it. 
The still more efficient axes of iron and steel coming into use, 
the bronze axe, in turn, declines in value. Mind obtaining 
command over matter the great natural forces become centred 
in man, who now discards the earlier instruments, preserving 
specimens only as curious evidences of the inferiority of his 
predecessors. 

Measuring himself against his products, man attributes to 
himself every increase of utility in the materials by which he 
is everywhere surrounded. The greater that utility the 
higher is his own value, and the less that of the things he 
needs. The cost of reproduction steadily declining, he him- 
self as steadily rises, every reduction in the .value of existing 
capital being so much added to the value of the man. 

§ 3. Little as was the work that could be done with the 
axe of stone its value to the owner was very great ; and 



394 CHAPTER XXXIV. § 3. 

dierefore the man to whom he lent it should paj largely for 
its use. The latter, cutting with it more wood in a day than 
without it he could have done in a month, though paying 
three-fourths of his product, finds his wages largely increased 
notwithstanding the large proportion claimed by its proprie- 
tor, his neighbor capitalist. 

The bronze axe being next obtained and proving far more 
useful, its owner, being asked to grant its use, iij required to 
recollect that not only has the productiveness of labor greatly 
increased, but the quantity required to be given for the pro- 
duction 'of an axe has greatly decreased. He therefore 
demands but two-thirds of the product of the far more useful 
instrument. The distribution may now thus be stated : — 

Total product. Laborer's sliare. Capitalist's share. 

Axe of stone, 4 1 3 

Axe of bronze ...8 2.66 5.33 

The reward of labor has more than doubled ; being an 
increased proportion of an increased quantity. The capital- 
ist's share has not quite doubled, he receiving a diminished 
proportion of the same increased quantity. The position of 
the laborer which had been, at first, as 1 to 3, is now as 1 
to 2, with great increase of power to become himself a 
capitalist. 

The axe of iron coming next, the cost .of reproduction 
again diminishes while labor again increases in its proportion 
as compared with capital. The new instrument cuts twice 
as much as had done that of bronze, yet is its owner com- 
pelled to be content with claiming half the product. The 
new distribution will be as follows : — 



Axe of stone 


Total. 

4 

8 


Laborer. 

1 

2.66 

8 


Capitalist. 

3 

5.33 


Axe of iron 


16 


, 8 



The axe of steel now coming, the product is again doubled, 
mth further diminution in the cost of reproduction ; and now 
the capitalist must content himself with a less proportion, the 
distribution being as follows : — 

Total. Laborer. Capitalist. 
Axe of steel 32. 19 20.. 12.80 

The laborer's share has increased ; and, the product having 
largely increased, the augmentation of his quantity is very 
great. That of the capitalist has diminished in proportion ; 



I 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 395 

but. the product having so much increased, this reduction of 
•proportif^u has been accompanied by a large increase in 
quantity, both thus profiting by tlie improvements that have 
been effected. 

Such is the great law governing the distribution of labor's 
products. Of all recorded in the book of science it is perhaps 
the most beautiful, being that one in virtue of which there is 
established a perfect harmony of real and true interests among 
the various classes of mankind. Still further, it establishes 
the fact that, however great may have been the oppressions 
of the many at the hands of the few, however large the accu- 
mulations resulting from the exercise of the power of appro- 
priation, however striking the existing distinctions among 
men, all that is required for establishing everywhere perfect 
equality before the law, and for promoting a general equality 
of social condition, is the pursuit of a system tending to 
establish in the highest degree the power of association and 
the development of individuality, thereby maintaining peace 
and promoting the growth of wealth and pooulation both at 
home and abroad. 

§ 4. The law here given is true in reference to all descrip- 
tions of capital. The house, long since built, cost much more 
labor than now suffices to reproduce a very superior one, 
but it has so fallen in value as not to command in price, or 
rent, one half of what it did at first, and will ultimately be 
destroyed as wholly worthless. 

So, too, with money. Brutus charged almost one half for 
its yearly use, and in the days of Henry VIII. the legal 
interest was 10 per cent. It has now so much declined, that 
4 per cent, is the established British rate. A decline like 
this furnishes the surest evidence that the labors of the 
present are becoming daily more productive, that the value 
of all commodities as measured by labor is steadily declin- 
ing, that the laborer is rising towards equality with the 
capitalist, and that the real man is becoming more and more 
developed. 

Interest is always high in agricultural countries, money 
tending thence outwards. The few who possess this most 
powerful instrument expect a large remuneration for its use. 
The trader, too, must have large profits, being compelled to 
forego the high interest he might receive from lending out 
his money, even when not himself obliged to pay interest 
/or the use of that of others. Large, however, as are the 



396 



CHAPTER XXXI V. § 5. 



proportions, the quantities to be received are very small, tlie 
capital to be lent being trivial in amount, and the quantity 
of commodities sold, very small. With the increase of popu- 
lation and wealth the proportion declines, interest fallino; to 
6ve or six per cent. ; but the trader finds his business so much 
increased, that, whereas he could scarcely live when he had 
50 per cent., he now grows rich upon 10, while his neigh- 
bor, transacting business on a larger scale, accumulates a 
fortune from charges of but one per cent. — all thus obtaining 
a constantly increasing quantity, though retaining a constantly 
diminishing proportion of the property passing through their 
hands. 

So, too, in manufactures. The vi^eaver with his single 
loom can barely exist on half the product of his labor. 
Thousands of looms being brought together and driven by 
steam labor becomes so much more productive, that a tenth 
or even a twentieth part gives large return for the capital 
employed. The poorer the machinery the smaller is always 
the product of labor, and the larger must be its owner's 
proportion of the trivial quantity of things produced. 

§ 5. The phenomena of distribution presented by all ad- 
vancing societies, passing forwards, correspond precisely 
with those observed in passing inward from the mountains 
of the West towards Massachusetts, as here is shown : — 



LABOR. 



Gloth and Iron. 



Cloth and Iron. / \ TFboZ and Com. 

GEORGE II. 



ANNE. 
ELIZABETH. 
HENRY VIII. 
EDWARD ni. 

THE CONQUEST. 



Wool and Oom. 



Land and labor, as we see, steadily increase in their 
dimensions as the proportion assigned to the trader, money- 
dealer, and landlord, diminishes ; the prices of raw materials 
and of finished commodities steadily approximating, and man 
becoming more free as the circulation becomes more rapid 

In full accordarice with this is what is now observed in 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 391 

France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia; while 
tlie reverse is seen in India and Ireland, Jamaica, Portugal, 
and Turkey — land there declining in value while rent in- 
creases ; the trader's profits, too, increasing as money disap- 
pears, and as the charge for its use is raised. Such, too, 
is the course of affairs in England, agricultural labor hav 
ing remained stationary while rents have nearly doubled. 
So, again, is it in tlie United States, the growth of pauperism, 
and the belief in the Divine origin of slavery, there steadily 
gaining ground, and keeping pace with the consolidation of 
land in the Slave States. Such are the consequences of a 
system tending to increase the quantity of wheat, cotton, or 
tobacco, required to be given in exchange for gold, silver, 
iron, copper, lead, or other of the metallic products of the 
earth. 

Capital being the instrument used by man in his efforts to 
obtain power over nature, whatever tends to increase his 
power over the instrument tends equally towards equality 
and freedom, and towards the elevation of the labor of the 
present at the expense of the accumulations of the past. 
Whatever, on the contrary, tends to increase the power of 
the instrument over him, tends to elevate those accumulations 
at his expense — to produce inequality — and to re-establish 
slavery. His power over the instrument growing with the 
growth of association, and that growing with the growth of 
diversity in the modes of employment, it follows, necessarily, 
that the road towards freedom for man is found in the direc- 
tion leading to the development of the various faculties of 
the individuals of whom society is composed. 

§ 6. Adam Smith's doctrines on the subject of interest have 
for their base the erroneous theory of the Ricardo-Malthusian 
school. " When," he says, " the most fertile and best situated 
lands have all been occupied, less profit can be made by the 
cultivation of what is inferior both in soil and situation, and 
less interest can be afiPorded for the stock which is so em- 
ployed.'' 

Unfortunately for the view thus presented the facts are 
the very reverse, the first poor colonist commencing, inva- 
riably, w^ith the poorer lands ; and it being only as he obtains 
improved machinery that he is enabled to cultivate the richer 
soils. Precisely as he does this, the rate of interest falls. 
The larger the return to labor the greater is the facility for 
obtaining monev, the charge for its use tending to decline 
34 



398 CHAPTER XXXIV. § 6. 

with every increase in the power to command the commodity 
for whose use alone interest is ever paid. 

This erroneous idea of Dr. Smith led him into many con- 
tradictions. Thus, after assuring his readers that interest 
falls in countries growing in wealth and population because 
of the increasing necessity for applying labor to the poorer 
soils, he tells them that it is in countries in which the wages 
of labor are low that interest is high. To look, however, to 
either Hume or Smith for consistency when they treat of 
money, would be as vain as to seek in the works of Ricardo 
and Malthus for truth in regard to the progress of wealth 
and population. 

Mr. Mill says that "there is at every time and place some 
particular rate of profit, which fs the lowest that will induce 
the people to accumu-late savings, and to employ those savings 
productively." Saving, however, implies stoppage of circu- 
lation ; whereas, the profitable employment of capital involves 
increase in its rapidity, the two being wholly inconsistent with 
each other. Four per cent, is the point at which people are 
willing to save in England, that rate being now, in Mr. Mill's 
opinion, as much productive of hoarding as was 40 per cent, 
in the reign of John, or now in the Burmese empire. The 
want of consistency in the doctrines of the British school is here 
most clearly obvious. Having first subjected men to a law 
in virtue of which labor becomes from year to year less pro- 
ductive and accumulation less possible, we are next told that 
they are willing to save at a certain rate of interest, thus 
having the power to choose for themselves whether capital 
shall or shall not increase, although living under a law which 
should render accumulation daily more difficult ! 

Mr. McCulloch tells us that laborers neither will nor can " be 
brought to market unless the rate of wages be such as may 
suffice to bring them up, and maintain them. From what- 
ever point of the political compass we may set out, the cost 
of production," as he thinks, " is the grand principle to which 
we must always come at last." Laborers are "brought to 
market" in Ireland to work at 4d. a day, for the reason, as he 
thinks, that the peasantry of that country "live in miserable 
mud cabins, without a window or a chimney, or any thing 
that can be called furniture ; while in England the cottages 
of the peasantry have glass windows and chimneys, are well 
furnished, and are as much distinguished for cleanliness and 
comfort, as those of the Irish for filth and misery." 

This is certainly a convenient mode of accounting for the 



OF DISTRIBUTION. .309 

wretijiedness of the people under the system that first aniiilii- 
hited their manufactures, and then annihilated the nation so 
far as regarded its position ami)ng nations — though scarcely 
very philosophical. Following out this principle, the cause 
of the large wages of the lawyer, the merchant, the general, 
and the admiral, must be found in the facts, that they live in 
large houses instead of small cottages, drink wine instead of 
water, and wear fine clothes instead of going in rags ! A 
better reason for the low wages of the one, and the high 
wages of the other, might perhaps be, that both exist under 
a svstem which looks to cheapening labor and raw material 
for the benefit of traders in men and merchandise. 

The value of man, like that of all other commodities and 
things, is measured by the cost of reproduction, and not by 
that of production. In the days of the Plantagenets, " benefit 
of clergy" was the privilege of the man whose knowledge of 
letters enabled him to read. Wealtli having largely grown, 
almost everybody now reads, the laborers of tiie present thus 
profiting by the accumulations of the past. The more rapid 
the growth of wealth, and the more perfect the societar}' cir- 
culation, the greater is the tendency towards the production 
of minds of higher power, with corresponding decline in the 
value of those which previously had been produced. 

The more the prices of labor, and of the rude produce of 
the land, tend to rise, and the more the prices of finished pro- 
ducts tend to fall — the two thus approximating — the smaller 
will be the space occupied by profits, interest, and rent, and 
the larger the proportions of the man and of the land he cul- 
tivates.* 

* "We may regard the rate of interest as a sort of level, below 
wliich all laV)or, all cultivation, all manufactures, and all commerce, 
cease. It is like a sea spread over a great country, of which the 
mountain summits rise above the waters, forming fertile and cul- 
tivated islands. The sea flowing out, the hill-slopes, and then the 
plains and valleys, gradually appear, covering themselves with 
products of every kind. To inundate the land and destroy the 
cultivation, or to restore to agriculture extensive territories, it is 
sufficient that tlie water should rise or fall a single foot. It is the 
abundance of capital that animates to effort ; and the low rate of 
interest is at once the effect, and the indication of that abuudduce." 
— Turcot : De la Distribution des liichesses, ^ 89. 



400 CHAPTER XXXV. § 1. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

OP DISTRIBUTION. — CONTINUED. 

II. — Of the Bent of Land. 

3 1. Of therent of land. Large proportion of the landlord in the days of early cultivation. 
That proportion diminishes as labor becomes more productive, but the amount of rent 
increases. The laborer's share increases \vith large increase in its amount, both thus 
profiting by increase in the power to command the services of nature. 

g 2. Kicardo's theory of rent. Teaches the reverse of this, the landlord's proportion ia- 
creasing as agricultural labor becomes less productive. 

'i 3. That theory based upon the false assumption that cultivation commences on the rich 
soils, and that labor becomes less productive as men increase in number and in pcwer. 

g 4. No such rent as that indicated by Ricardo has ever been, or ever can be paid„ 

I 5. The ultimate slavery of man the natural tendency of the Ricardo-Malthusiau theory, 
rent rising as labor becomes less productive. 

g 6. Simplicity and universal truth of natural laws. Complexity and error of the Ri- 
cardo theory. 

g 7. Growth of rent supposed by Mr. Ricardo to be retarded by improvements in cultiva- 
tion. Interests of the landlord supposed to be promoted by diminution in the supply 
of food, and increasing poverty of the laborer. 

g 8. The Ricardo theory one of universal discords. Harmony and beauty of the real laws. 

g 9. The more rapid the circulation, the greater the tendency towards equality and free- 
dom among the people, and strength in the State. 

g 10. War among nations, and discord among individuals, grow with the growth of mo. 
nopoly of the land. That monopoly a necessary consequence of the British policy. 
With every stage of its progress the more must the people suffer in the distribution be- 
tween themselves and the State. 

§ 1. Thus far, in our examination of the great natural laws 
to which man and matter are subjected, they have proved 
equally true whether considered in relation to the earth it- 
self, or to the axes, canoes, or clothing, into which man con- 
verts the material by which he is surrounded. His course, 
in all communities that increase in wealth and population, is 
ever onward, the first step being always the most costly and 
the least productive. At each succeeding stage less effort is 
demanded ; and as the cost of reproduction declines, so, too, 
does the value of all the instruments he has thus far had in 
use. 

Rent, too, declines, the owner of land receiving a dimin- 
ished proportion of its products. Had the owner of the first 
little farm been asked for permission to cultivate it, he would 
have answered : "As you can obtain by its aid as much food 
in a day as you could in a w^eek without it, if you give me 
three-fourths of the product, your wages will be one-half in- 
creased." 



I 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 401 

The contract made, both parties can devote more time and 
mind to the improvement of the machinery of production. 
The farm, although it has cost many years of labor, yields 
but 100 bushels. Mental force now combining with physi- 
cal, one of twice the power is produced at diminished cost. 
Others yet better follow, each in succession the produce of 
diminished effort. With each, present labor acquires power 
at the expense of past accumulations, and rent diminishes in 
ytroportion, though increasing in quantity. Tiie proprietor 
of the first allowed to the laborer but one-fourth of the pro- 
duct; but that of the second finds the relative positions of 
capital and labor to be greatly changed. His powers have 
increased, but so have theirs. Instead, therefore, of three- 
fourths, he exacts but three-fifths, receiving 120 bushels, in- 
stead of the 75 of his predecessor, and leaving to the laborer 
80, more than thrice his first allowance At each such stage 
the same phenomena are repeated, but with ever-increasing 
force, the progress being as here represented : 

Total. Shaie of Caiiital. Share of Labor. 

First lUO 75 25 

Second 200 120 80 

Third 300 150 150 

Fourth 400 ISO 220 

Fifth (iOO 240 360 

Sixth 1000 33:j 607 

The power of capital has, thus, little more than quadrupled ; 
while that of labor has more than 20 times increased. With 
the growth of human force, there is, therefore, a steady ten- 
dency towards decline in the power. of man over his fellow- 
man, and towards the estaljlishment of equality among the 
various portions of the human race. Tiiat the weak may find 
themselves on a level with the strong, and that woman may 
take her place by the side of the being who everywhere has 
been her master, all, therefore, that is required is that wealth 
l)e permitted to grow, and that individuality be developed by 
means of that diversification of employments which is indis- 
pensable to rapidity in the societary circulation, and to the 
l)ower of further progress. 

§ 2. The views liere given differ totally from those com- 
monly received. The laws which govern the payment of 
rent had for more than a century occupied the attention of 
economists, when Mr. Ricardo, in 1817, reduced to form ideas 
that had been suggested by Adam Smith, Dr. Anderson, and 



402 CHAPTER XXXV. § 2. 

othors, giving to the world a theory of rent that has since 
been treated as the great discovery of the age. 

Compensation for the use of land being, in his view, paid 
for the command of certain " original and indestructible pow- 
ers of the soil," it tends to increase in its proportions as, 
with the growth of population and of wealth, there arises a 
necessity for resorting to soils of " constantly diminishing 
fertility," yielding a less and less return to labor, the power 
of nature over man steadily increasing, and he becoming more 
and more her slave and that of his fellow-man. Starting 
thus from a point directly opposite, it is not surprising that 
we find him arriving at a distribution directly the reverse of 
that above submitted for consideration, and equally opposed 
to all the facts that history records. His doctrines, in their 
simplest form, are contained in the following propositions : 

First. That, at the commencement of cultivation, popu- 
lation being small and land abundant, those soils alone are 
cultivated whose properties fit them for yielding the- largest 
return to labor — a given quantity of effort being then rewarded 
with a hundred quarters of corn : 

Second. That, land becoming less abundant as population 
increases in density, there arises a necessity for cultivating 
less fertile soils — resort being then had to those of second, 
third, and fourth quality, yielding respectively ninety, eighty, 
and seventy quarters in return to a similar amount of effort : 

Third. That, with the growing necessity for thus apply- 
ing labor less productively, rent arises — the owner of No. 1 
being enabled to demand and obtain ten quarters when resort 
is had to No. 2, twenty when No. 3 is brought into use, and 
thirty when it becomes necessary to cultivate No. 4 : 

Fourth. That the proportion of the landlord tends, thus, 
steadily to increase as the productiveness of labor decreases ; 
the division being as follows : 

Total. Labor. Rent. 

At the first period, when No. 1 alone is cultivated 100 100 00 

" second, " No. 1 and 2 are cultivated 190 180 .... 10 

" third, " No. 1 to 3 " 270 240 .^0 

" fourth, " No. 1 to " 340 280 60 

" fifth, " No. 1 to 5 " 400 300 100 

" sixth, " No. 1 to 6 " 450 320 130 

" seventh, " No. 1 to 7 " 490 250 240 

— there being, thus, a tendency towards the ultimate absorp- 
tion of the whole produce by the owner of the land, and 
towards a steadily-increasing inequality of condition, the 
power of the laborer to consume the commodities he produces 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 403 

steadily diminisliing', and tliat of the land-owner to claim 
tlieni as rent steadily increasing : 

Fifth. That this tendency towards a diminution in the 
return to labor, and towards an increase in the landlord's 
proportions, is found in the ratio of the growth of population, 
and most existing where population increases with most ra- 
pidity, counteract^ in a certain degree, however, by increase 
of wealth, producing improvement of cultivation : 

Sixth. That every such improvement tends to retard the 
growth of rent; while every obstacle to improvement tends 
to increase that growth ; and that, as a necessary consequence, 
the interests of the land-owner and the laborer are always in 
opposition, rent rising as labor falls, and labor falling as rent 
increases in its proportions. 

§ 3. The whole system thus placed before the reader rests 
on the assumption that cultivation commences on the richest 
soils, an idea that would never have been suggested had its 
author ever had the opportunity to study the movements of 
earl}' settlers, who are always poor; or had he reflected, even 
in his closet, upon the fact, that rich soils are found in the 
river-bottoms, requiring great effort to clear, drain, and pre- 
pare them for man's service. That cultivation has always 
commenced on the poorer soils, and that it is only with the 
growth of wealth and population that the richer ones have 
been reclaimed, has been already shown, and the foundation 
of the theor}' having been thus proved false, it might be al- 
lowed to pass into the oblivion it merits, but that the hold it 
has obtained over the public mind renders it necessary to ex 
pose its many fallacies. 

First among them is the assertion, that, with increase of 
numbers, there arises a necessit}' for resorting to machinery 
of inferior power, yielding less and less in return to labor. 
Were it so that man did really commence on the richer soil, 
then would this proposition be true, increasing numbers bring- 
ing with them a steady decline of human power, and man be- 
coming from age to age more and more the slave of nature. 
The contrary proposition, however, being true, then with 
increasing power he must rise gradually until he attains the 
level of the true man, feeding, clothing, and lodging him- 
self better ; acting and thinking better ; and exercising a voli- 
tion increasing with his increased control over the material 
world. Whtch of these two classes of phenomena has been 
presented in all advancing countries, we may now examine 



404 CHAPTER XXXV. § 3. 

The population of England and Wales, in tlie fourteenth 
century, did not exceed 2,500,000. Fertile lands abounded, 
yet those in cultivation were so poor that six to eight bushels 
of wheat to the acre were regarded as an average crop. The 
people are now seven times more numerous, and the land in 
<;ultivation is at least ten times more, yet the average yield 
per acre has almost equally increased, famines, now un- 
known, were then frequent and severe. Maids of honor 
luxuriated on bacon, and laborers banqueted upon "the 
strength of water-gruel," a piece of fat pork being to them a 
luxury rarely to be enjoyed. Even so late as within a cen- 
tury, the bread most generally consumed was made of bai'ley, 
rye, and oats, the use of wheat being limited to the rich. 
Now it is in universal use, while beef and mutton have suc- 
ceeded the salt herring on the table of the artisan and the 
laborei', and the mast-fed bacon that of the landlord. Within 
a century, the average weight of cattle has risen from StO to 
800 pounds, and that of sheep from 28 to 80, their numbers 
having meantime increased even more rapidly than their 
weight. The return to labor has thus largely augmented, 
as, with increased numbers, man has acquired power to sub- 
ject to cultivation the richer soils. 

The history of France in the Middle Ages, when land 
abounded and men were few, is the record of a constant suc- 
cession of famines. So recently as the beginning of the last 
century, the people wanted bread half of their time, and went 
clothed in skins for want of power to obtain cloth. A cen- 
tury since, only 1,000,000 ate wheaten bread ; now 20,000,000 
do so, and the improvement in the character of the food is 
still greater than the increase in the numbers requiring to be 
fed. 

^ The people of Russia are now much better clothed and fed 
than in the days of Peter the Great, notwithstanding a great 
increase of numbers. So, too, has it been with those of Ger- 
many and Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, all of whom are 
incomparably better fed than were their ancestors in the days 
when land was most abundant. Looking next to the early 
settlements of what are now the United States, we find their 
history but a record of severe privations, I'esulting from a 
paucity of numbers that forbade the existence of that power 
of combination to which alone is the man of the present day 
indebted for his greatly-increased control of the great forces 
of nature. 

Every fact presented in the history of the world is in strict 
accordance with the following proposition : 



OP dtstribi:tton. 406 

That, as wealth and population increase, men arc more and 
more enabled to associate together and to combine their ef- 
forts, with constant!}^ increasing power to compel the services 
of nature, each and every step being marked by constant in- 
crease in the returns to labor, in the rapidity of circulation, 
and in the facility of production and accumulation. 

§ 4. Mr. Ricardo's next proposition is, that, with the ne- 
cessity for applying labor less productively, rent arises — the 
owner of No. 1, yielding 100 quarters, being enabled to de- 
mand 10 quarters when resort is had to those of the second 
quality, yielding 90 quarters; and 20, when No. 3, yielding 
only 80, is brought into use. 

Were all land of precisely equal productive power, no such 
necessity could be supposed ; yet compensation would still 
De paid for the use of a faim provided with buildings and 
enclosures, that would be refused for one remaining in a state 
of nature. That compensation he considers as interest upon 
capital, and as distinct from what is paid for the use of the 
powers of the soil. When lands of different capabilities are 
in use, all equally improved, he supposes the owner of No. 1 
to receive interest upon his capital, plun the difference be- 
tween the 100 quarters it yields, and the 90, 80, or 70 yielded 
by the soil of lowest power to the cultivation of which man's 
necessities have forced him. This difference he holds to be 
the true rent. 

The real course of proceeding, however, is directly the re- 
verse of this. The first little clearing with its miserable 
cabin cost twice as much labor as would afterwards be re- 
quired for clearing a larger quantity of better land, and placing 
upon it a tolerable log-house. The first settler, desiring to 
let his little farm, finds himself forced to accept, not profits 
j)lus difference, but profits minus difference, thus obeying 
the same law that governs all other things. The old house, 
ship, or engine cost more than the better one which replaces 
it, and not only declines in value, but is ultimately condemned 
as worthless. The value of every commodity being every- 
where limited to the cost of reproduction, and tlmt declining 
with the growth of wealth, the owner finds himself forced to 
accept a diminished proportion of its products No such 
rent as that imagined by Mr. Ricardo has ever been paid. 
As well might the owner of the early engine, or the early 
mill, expect to be paid for the use of the " original and inde- 
structible properties" of the iron, as the owner of the early 
occupied land. 



406 CHAPTER XXXV. § 5. 

§ 5. Tlie third proposition is, that, with the increase of 
wealth and population, and the consequent necessity for re 
sorting to the poorer soils, the landlord's proporlion tends 
to increase, I'ent rising as labor becomes less productive. If 
cultivation does really commence with the richer soils then 
is this proposition true, the necessary result of an increase in 
the nuinbers of mankind being that of more and more sub- 
jecting the many who labor to the will of the few who own 
the land. The ultimate slavery of man is thus the natural 
termination of the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine. If, how- 
ever, the contrary be true, then must the landlord's propor- 
tion steadily diminish, leaving a larger proportion of an.zn- 
creased quantity for the laborer, whose ultimate lot is freedom. 

Adam Smith tells his readers that the landlord's share in 
his day was but a fourth or a fifth of the product ; and Mr. 
Malthus acknowledges that it did not in his own time exceed 
a fifth. This, however, he considers as a proof of increasing 
difficulty in obtaining food, asserting that whereas in the 
fifteenth century a laborer could have 122 pints of wheat as 
a week's wages, in 1810 he could have but 80. 

In 1389, a plough-driver had ts. and a carter, 10s. a year, 
without clothing, and it is doubtful if, in addition, he had. 
even his wretched food. On an average, those wages would 
not command more than eight bushels of wheat, yet are we 
now assured tliat a laborer could then earn three bushels per 
week. The average yield having been but about six bushels 
per acre, it follows that the annual wages of a single laborer 
required the whole product of 26 acres, and that at a period 
when, because of the imperfection of machinery, more than 
ten days labor were required for harvesting the wretched 
product of a single acre. Such are the extraordinary state- 
ments that are now put forth by writers who know that the 
land and its representative then took at least two-thirds of 
the whole product of land and labor. 

In France, as has been already shown, the number of agri- 
cultural families nearly doubled in the period from 1700 to 
1840, the average wages of agricultural labor having, in that 
same time, quadrupled. In the first period, the proportion 
allotted to the laborer was 35 per cent. ; in the latter, it was 
60 per cent. In the first, the land-owner retained 65 per 
cent., or almost twice as much as the laborer's share ; whereas, 
in the latter, he retained but 40 per' cent., or only two- 
tliirds as much. Nevertiieless, so great had been the increase 
of product, that the smaller proportion of the latter period 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 407 

gave to the capitalists 2,000,000,000 of francs, in place of 
850,000,000 received in the earlier one. 

Such is the course of things in every country in which 
wealth and population are permitted to increase and com- 
merce is allowed to extend itself, all existing commodities 
then necessarily declining in their value as compared with 
labor, and labor rising as compared with them, l)ecause of 
constant diminution in the cost of reproduction. In Prussia, 
forty years since, a third of the product was regarded as the 
share to which the tenant might equitably be entitled. Since 
then — labor having become greatly more productive — the la- 
borer's proportion has rapidly increased. 

Wealth should grow more rapidly than population, and 
every increase in the ratio of the former to the latter is at- 
tended with an augmentation of the power of the laborer, as 
comi)ared with that of landed or other caj)ital. We all see, 
that when ships are more numerous than cargoes, freights are 
low ; and, vice versa, that when cargoes are more abundant 
than ships, freights are high. ^\'hen ploughs and horses 
more abound than ploughmen, the latter fix the wages; but 
when ploughmen are more abundant than ploughs, the own- 
ers of the latter determine the distribution of the product. 
Wealth increasing rapidly, new soils are brought into culti- 
vation and more ploughmen are required. The demand for 
ploughs producing a demand for more men to mine the coal 
and smelt the ore, the iron-master becomes a competitor for 
the laborer, who obtains a larger proportion of the constantly- 
increasing return to labor. He, in turn, becoming a better 
purchaser of cloth, the manufacturer becomes a competitor 
with the iron-master and the farmer for his services. His 
proportion being again increased he now requires sugar, and 
tea, and coffee ; and next, the ship-master competes with the 
manufacturer, the iron-master, and the farmer. With the 
growth of wealth and population, there is thus a constant in- 
crease in the demand for mental and physical eflbrt — the in- 
creased productiveness of which, and the consequently-in- 
creased facilit}' of accumulating wealth, are followed neces- 
sarily, and certainly, by an increase of the laborer's propor- 
tion. His wages rising, the proportion of the capitalist falls ; 
yet now the latter accumulates fortune more rapidly than 
ever, his and the laborer's interests being in perfect harmony 
with each other. The highest evidence of increasing wealth 
is to be found in the reduction of that proportion ; and yet, 
the cardinal principle of the Ricardo-Mallhusian doctrine i? 



408 CHAPTER XXXV. § 7. 

found in the assertion, that with the growth of wealth and 
population it must increase. 

The following table of the results of the two systems may 
be compared by the reader with what passes before his eyes : 



KICAI 

First period 

Second period.. 
Third " 
Fourth " 
Fifth " 
Sixth " 


IDO'S DOCTRINE. 

Power 
of Land. 
. 100 00 .... 


Power 
of Labor. 

100 

180 

240. 

280 

300 

300 

280 

240 

180 

100 

00 


30 .. 

70 „ 
120 .. 
180 .. 
250 .. 
330 .. 
420 .. 
510 .. 
620 .. 
740 .. 
870 .. 


OBSERVATION. 

Power 

Land. 

20 

42 

60 

80 

100 

120 

140 , 

155 


Power 

Labor. 

.... 10 


. 190 .... 


10 .... 


.... 28 


270 .... 
340 .... 
400 .... 
450 .... 


30 .... 

60 .... 

100 .... 

150 .... 


.... 60 
.... 100 
.... 150 
.... 210 




490 ..... 


210 .... 


.... 280 


Eighth " 


620 .... 
640 .... 
550 .... 


280 .... 

360 .... 

450 .... 


.... 355 




170 


.... 450 


Tenth " 


180 

190 


.... 560 


Eleventh " 


550 .... 


650 .... 


.... 680 



§ 6. The next proposition is, that wealth tends to counter- 
act those laws, preventing the necessity for resorting to less 
productive soiis, by producing improvements in cultivation. 

This proposition was interpolated into the system because 
of the absolute necessity for leaving a place of escape for some 
o'f the thousand exceptions to its laws, and its presence is a 
direct admission of the unsoundness of the doctrine. Ad- 
mitting its validity, wealth should grow most abundantly 
when and where land is most abundant. So far the reverse, 
however, has it been, that wealth has grown most slowly in 
those countries in which rich and unoccupied soils have most 
abounded ; because there, men being few and scattered, the 
power of association has least existed. 

The laws of nature are simple and universally true. That 
of Mr. Ricardo is complex and universally false. Had it been 
otherwise, there would have been no necessity for thus pro- 
viding escape-valves for troublesome facts. 

§ 7. The last proposition is, that every such improvement 
tends to retard the increase of rent, every obstacle to improve- 
ment tending, on the contrary, to accelerate it. The interests 
of the landlord and the laborer are thus always in opposition 
to each other. 

Were it so that men did really commence on the most fer- 
tile soils, such must inevitably be the case. The landlord 
would take a constantly-increasing proportion, the laborer 
becoming his slave, thankful to be allowed to live and work, 
though fed on acorn-bread. The doctrine being here carried 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 409 

out to its legitimate result, if correct, that point must cer- 
tainly, at some future da}', be reached. It signifies nothing 
to say that the downward progress may be arrested. " How 
slow soever the increase of population," says one of the most 
eminent of the teachers of the Ricardo-Malthusian school, 
•* if that of capital be still slower," as must certainly be the 
case if men do really commence on the richest soils, " wages 
will be reduced so low, that a portion of the population will 
regularly die from the consequences of want." The experience 
of Europe for thousands of years, and that of America for 
several centuries, leads us to opposite conclusions ; yet are 
we constantly assured that such is the laic. If so, when is 
it to become effective ? We know of no other of nature's 
laws hung up, in lerrorem, over man ; none, the action of 
which is thus suspended, to fall, at some future period, with 
a force immeasurably increased. Population increases daily, 
and yet is man permitted to go on increasing his species in 
blissful ignorance of the great fact, that his descendants have 
been foredoomed to suffer all the pangs of hunger while land- 
owners are to revel in abundance, the one class becoming 
masters, the other becoming with each succeeding century 
more thoroughly enslaved 

§ 8. The harmony of all the permanent interests of man 
being perfect, it would seem to be required only that men 
should be persuaded of its existence, to appreciate fully the 
advantages of co-operation over antagonism, and to induce 
all honest and enlightened men to unite in an effort for enab- 
ling their fellow-men, everywhere, to indulge their natural 
desire for association and combination, the husbandman and 
the artisan taking their places by each other's side. The 
necessit}'^ for this, and the advantages to be derived from it 
by all — whether Gaul or Briton, Turk or Christian — being 
more fully understood, peace and commerce would take the 
place of trading jealousy and universal discord. The har- 
mony of classes thus begetting a harmony of nations, the love 
of peace would diffuse itself throughout the earth. AW would 
then become satisfied that in the laws which gorern the re- 
lations of man with his fellow-man, there reign the same 
beautiful simplicity and harmony everywhere else so abun- 
dantly evid((nt ; all, by degrees, would learn that their own 
interests would be best promoted by respecting, in others, 
those rights of person and ])roperty they desired to have re- 
spected in themselves ; and all become at length convinced 
35 



410 CHAPTER XXXV. § 9. 

that the whole of social science is embraced in the brief words 
of the great founder of Christianity : " Do unto others as ye 
would that others should do unto you." 

Mr. Ricardo's system is one of discords, and tends to the 
production of war among both classes and nations Pro- 
fessing an admiration for freedom of commerce, he teaches 
that a monopoly of the land is in accordance with a great law 
of nature. Believing in freedom of action, he teaches that if 
men and women vjill unite in marriage — thus doing that 
which stimulates to exertion, and tends most to improve both 
liead and heart — starvation is their probable reward. Thor- 
oughly approving sound morality he enforces the advantages 
of celibacy, thus affording countenance to the many restric- 
tions by which marriage is prevented and profligacy pro- 
moted. Professing a desire for free-trade in corn, he teaches 
the landlord that his interests will be injuriously affected by 
it. Anxious to improve the condition of the people, he as- 
sures the land-owner that improvement in the modes of cul- 
tivation must diminish rent. Desiring that the rights of 
property may be respected, he instructs the laborer that tlTe 
interests of the land-owner are to be promoted by every 
measure tending to produce a scarcity of food, rent being 
paid because of the monopoly, by a few, of that which a be- 
neficent Deity had intended for the good of all. His book is 
the true manual of the demagogue, seeking power by means 
of agrarianisn), war, and plunder. Its lessons being incon- 
sistent with those aBbrded by the study of all well-observed 
facts, and inconsistent even with themselves, the sooner they 
shall be discarded the better for the interests of landlord and 
tenant, manufacturer and mechanic, and mankind at large. 

§ 9. All the facts thus laid before the reader, in relation to 
wages, profits, and rents, and those presented by the history 
of the world, now range themselves under tlie following 
propositions : flj 

That, in the early periods of society, population being" 
small and scattered, the possession of a small amount of 
capital gives to its owner a great amount of power, enabling 
him to hold the laborer dependent on his will, as serf or slave : 

That, with the growth of wealth and numbers, the power 
of combination increases, with great increase in the produc- 
tiveness of labor, and in the power of accumulation, every 
step in that direction being attended by decline in the power 
of the already-existing capital to command the services of 



I 



OF DlSraiBLTION. 411 

tlie laborer, and by increase of power on the part of the latter 
to command tlie aid of capital : 

That tbe laborer'^ proportion of tlie increased product 
tends thus steadily to increase, wliile that of the capitalist 
tends as regularh'' to decline : 

That tiie quantity assigned to both increases, that of the 
laborer growing, however, far more rapidly than that retained 
bv the capitalist, the latter having a smaller p7-opoiiion of 
tlie augmented quantity, while the former has a constantly- 
iiicreasing propo?^tion of the increasing quantity : 

That the tendency to ecpiality is, therefore, in the direct 
ratio of the growth of wealth, and consequent productiveness 
of labor : 

That wealth grows in the ratio of the rapidity of circula- 
tion : 

That the circulation increases in rapidity as individuality 
is more and more developed, with growing power for the 
diversification of employments among those who labor: 

That the more rapid the circulation the larger must be i\\ei 
proportion of the laboier, and the greater must be the ten- 
dency towards equality, elevation, and freedom among the 
people, and the greater the strength of the State. 

§ 10. The law of distribution above presented for the read- 
er's consideration was first announced more than twenty 
years since by the author of the present volume.* 

Reappearing since in the work of a distinguished French 
economist, f its harmony and beauty are recognized by him 
in the following words, whose truth will be acknowledged by 
all who study the subject with the attention it so well de- 
serves : 

" Such is the great, admirable, consoling, necessary, and 
injlexihle law of capital. To demonstrate it is, as it appears 
to me, to strike with discredit the declamation with which 
our ears have so long been dinned, against the avarice and 
tyranny of the most powerful Instrument of civilization and 
of equalization that results from the exercise of human pow- 
ers. * * * * Thus, the great law of capital and labor, as 
regards the distribution of the product of their joint labor, is 
settled ; the absolute quantity is greater, but the proportional 
part of capital constantly diminishes, as compared with that 
of labor. 

* Principles of Political Economy, Part I. Phil a., 1837. 
■| Bastiat ; Harmonies Economiques. Paris, 1850. 



412 CHAPTER XXXV. § 10 

" Cease, then, ye capitalists and laborers, to look upon each 
other with eyes of suspicion and envy. Close your ears to 
those absurd declaimers, of whom nothing equals the pride 
if it be not the ignorance, who, under the promise of future 
harmony begin by exciting present discord. Recollect that, 
say what they may, your interests are one and the same ; that 
they cannot be separated ; that they tend together towards the 
realization of the general good ; that the labors of the present 
generation combine themselves with those of the generations 
which have passed ; that it is right that each who has united 
in the work should have a portion of the remuneration ; and 
that the most ingenious as well as the most equitable division 
takes place between you by virtue of providential laws, and 
by means of free and voluntary arrangements, without re- 
quiring the aid of a parasitic sentimentalism to impose upon 
you its decrees, at the expense of your well-being, your lib- 
erty, your security, and your dignity.''^ 

Widely different from this are the tendencies of the doc- 
ti^ine which teaches that " the landlord is doubly benefited by 
difficulty of production," obtaining " a greater share," and 
being paid " in a commodity of higher value." That system, 
opposing, as it does, the interests of the landlord to those of 
the other classes of society, tends necessarily to disturbance 
of the right to property in land, as thus shown by one of its 
most distinguished advocates, Mr. J. S. Mill : 

" When the ' sacredness of property' is talked of, it should 
always be remembered, that this sacredness does not belong 
in the same degree to landed property. No man made the 
land. It is the original inhei'itance of the whole species. 
* * * If the State is at liberty to treat the possessoi'S of 
land as public functionaries, it is only going one step farther 
to say, it is at liberty to discard them. The claim of the land- 
owners is altogether subordinate to the general policy of the 
State." 

War among nations, and discord among individuals, grow 
with the growth of monopoly in land. Land becomes con- 
solidated as the farmer becomes more thoroughly subjected 
to that policy which has for its object the limitation of the 
world to a single and distant workshop, and as producer and 
consumer become more widely separated. The more perfect 
its consolidation the greater must be the inequalities of so- 
ciety, and the more must those who labor be made to suffer 
in the distribution effected between the people and the State. 



OP DISTRIBUTION. 413 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

OF DISTRIBUTION — CONTINUED. 

III.— The People and the State. 

2 1. Of distribution between the people .and the State. Small secniity obtained at the 

cost of heiivy contiibutious in the early stages of society. As eniployuieuts become 

diversified security increases and is obtained at diminished cost. 
§ 2. Necessity for indirect taxation in the early period. Diminishes as fixed property 

increases in the proportions borne by it to that which is movable. 
§ 3. Commerce tends to become more free as the proportion of movable to fixed property 

declines, 
g 4. Tendency towards increase of indirect taxation an evidence of declining civilization. 

Phenomena presented for consideration by Greece and Kome. Indirect taxation of 

Holland, Turkey, and other countries that are becoming more subject to the dominion 

of the trader. 
I 5. Substitution of indirect for direct taxation in Great Britain. Taxation of India and 

Carolina. The real payers of British taxes the land and labor of the various countries 

which furnish the raw materials consumed in British workshops. 
^ 6. Revenue system of the United States. The countries in which direct taxation tends 

to supersede those which are indirect, are those which have protected themoelves 

against the British system, 
g 7. The more direct the taxation the le.ss will be its proportion to production. 
I 8. The more rapid the circulation the less the power for interference with commerce, 

and the greater the tendency towards improvement in the condition of man. Why not, 

then, at once abolish all iudiiect taxation? Because the power of du-ect taxation — 

being an evidence of that high civilization which is marked by the near approach of the 

prices of rude products and finished commodities — cannot be exercised in any country 

that has not prepared for it by placing consumers and producers in close proximity to 

eiich other, 
g 9. The more perfect the power to apply directly to the land and labor of the country, the 

greater the competition for the purchase of both, and the greater the strength of the 

State. 

§ 1. From the moment when Crusoe discovered that he had 
neighbors poorer even than himself, he lived in constant 
fear of his life. Friday, however, having joined him, security 
was increased, the one watching while the other slept or 
labored. So has it been, and so is it now, in all the earlj 
settlements of the world. Seeking security the early peoiile 
of Greece and Italy placed all their towns on the tops of liill-s, 
a course of proceeding to which they would have thus been 
led, even had they possessed the power to cultivate the fertile 
soils of the valleys capable of yielding thrice the return to 
labor. So was it in Southern England, almost every hill- 
top there presenting, even now, evidence of early occupation. 
So is it, now, in Kansas and Oregon, every man being com- 
pelled to prepare himself for self-defence. The regular appli- 
cation of labor to the work of obtaining command over the 
great natural forces, having, therefore, no existence, the 



414 



CHAPTER XXXVl. 



potential energy of man remains latent, be, himself, continu- 
ing poor, because of the absence of power for combination 
with his fellow-men. 

Friday's arrival exercised upon Crusoe's condition a double 
influence, greatly increasing its effectiveness when applied, 
and enabling him more continuously to apply it. His wants 
and his powers being here, as everywhere, a constant quan- 
tity, every increase of the latter was attended with an en- 
largement of his proportions, the resistance of nature to his 
further efforts diminishing as his powders of attack increased. 
So is it in all new settlements, security growing in a ratio 
far exceeding that of numbers, and being obtained in. return 
for contributions of time and mind, or the produce of both, 
constantly diminishing in the proportion borne by them to 
the quantity of things produced. Look where the reader 
may, he will find evidence that the course of man towards 
civilization is represented by the diagram already more than 
once submitted for his consideration : here again reproduced, 
in evidence of the universality of the law under which free- 
dom grows as the prices of raw materials and finished com- 
modities come nearer to each other. 



Slavery. 



LABOR. 



Land valtieUss. 



freedom. 




Massachusetts. 



Land Mgh in value,. 



On the left there is no security, the law of force alone 
being recognized. The weak are there the slaves of the 
strong, to be taxed at pleasure. Passing towards the right 
employments become diversified, and individuality more and 
more developed. The power of association steadily increases, 
until, at length, in Massachusetts, we find a community en- 
joying a higher degree of security, and giving in exchange 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 415 

for it a smaller proportion of the products of labor than in 
any other country of the world. 

Passing upwards through English history we obtain re- 
sults exactly similar. The men of early England, harassed 
by Danes and Saxons, enjoyed even less security than those 
of the days of the Plantagenets. Thenceforward, to the 
accession of the Stuarts, there was no security in the 
northern and western counties. Elsewhere, the wars of the 
Roses, and the execution of 12,000 persons in a single reign, 
bear testimony to the almost total absence of security as to 
individual rights. The reign of Elizabeth exhibits a series 
of depredations on the people of the coast by Algeriiie and 
other pirates. The close of border wars is followed by civil 
war; yet amidst all this waste of human energies we trace a 
growing steadiness in the societary movement, and a constant 
increase in the tendency towards equity in the distribution 
of the societary burthens. 

§ 2. In the early ages of society the contributions required 
for the maintenance of security bear a large proportion to the 
property of the community. Whence, however, can they 
come ? Of fixed property there is none, the little capital that 
exists consisting of cattle, hogs, corn, or slaves. Hence it is 
that at this period we find the lord arresting the societary 
circulation, that he may claim the lion's share of labor's pro- 
ducts. At times he demands personal service on the farm; 
at others on the road, or in the field. He stops the corn on 
its road to the mill ; the meal on its way to the oven ; the 
wool on its way to the clothier ; the cloth on its way to the 
people who need to use it. At one time he calls in heavy 
gold and silver coins, paying for them in others that are light ; 
at another, he repudiates the light, compelling his subjects to 
purchase of him those which are heavy, and thus pilfering 
that which openly he dares not take. 

Wealth and population, however, increasing, land and labor 
acquire value as commodities lose it ; and men become free 
as their masters become enriched. The power of interference 
now declines, the mill and oven monopolies passing away, 
and lords and masters being required to look to fixed property 
as a source of revenue. The slave now becomes a tenant, 
contracting with the land-owner for a certain rent, and being 
released from personal service. The tenant, too, becomes a 
freeman, contracting with his sovereign for the payment of a 
fixed amount of money, and thereby freeing himself from iL- 
terference in his exchanges with his fellow-men. 



416 CHArxER XXXVI. § 3. 

§ 3. That the ( ourse of affairs should, in all advancing com- 
munities, be such as is above described, will be obvious to 
the reader on an examination of the foregoing diagram, the 
space occupied by property in motion being a constantly 
contracting one, and that of the land and the man by whom 
it is cultivated, being a constantly enlarging one. With the 
contraction of the first, the power of interference steadily 
diminishes, the quantity of things liable to be arrested o\\ 
their passage from the producer to the consumer bearing a 
constantly diminishing proportion to that produced. With 
the enlargement of the last, the power of the producer to 
treat directly with those who perform the duties of govern- 
ment, grows steadily and rapidly, its growth manifesting itself _ 
in a steady and regular effort for removing the difficulties 
standing in the way of commerce. 

That such han been the course of things in advancing 
countries may be seen by those who study the course of 
England from the time when the Plantagenets bought and 
sold wool, and debased the currency ; when almost the only 
mode of taxing the land was to arrest its passage from hand 
to hand by means of purveyance, wardship, or taxes on aliena- 
tion ; down to the passage, in 1692, of a specific tax on the 
rental. Tn France, in the feudal times, we find the land 
exempt from taxation, while the slave by whom it was culti- 
vated was liable to contributions of personal service in eVery 
form, and his products were taxed at every step of their 
passage towards those by whom they were to be consumed. 
Passing thence to the Revolution, we find the Constitutional 
Assembly abolishing numerous taxes tending to arrest of the 
circulation, and substituting direct contributions by lands and 
houses, now the most important items of the revenue. Spain, 
too, has done the same, a general land-tax having superseded 
the alcavala which had affected every transfer of movables, 
and with it numerous minor taxes which had impeded circu- 
lation. In all parts of Germany, too, we find a growing 
tendency to the substitution of fixed money-rents for personal 
service ; and of taxes on fixed property for those heretofore 
paid on movables. 

Coming next to these United States, we find a correspond- 
ing state of things on passing from the Southern States, 
where land is held in large plantations, and cultivated by 
slaves, to those of the North and East, where land is divided 
and men are free. In South Carolina nearly the whole ex- 
penses of the State are paid by taxes on professions, slaves,: 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 417 

free negroes, and other movable property. In Massachusetts, 
on the contrary, seven-eighths of the revenue are derived 
from fixed property. A tax on auction sales, yielding but a 
small amount, is the only portion of it not derived from direct 
and honest application to the parties by whom it is paid. 

Boston raises thrice as much as the State, the whole, 
except a poll-tax of $1 50 per head, being derived from taxes 
on property that is fixed. 

Reviewing the communities above referred to, we find that 
commerce grows as we pass from those in which taxation is 
indirect, towards those in which it is direct : the circulation 
becoming more rapid ; consumption following more instantly 
upon production ; production itself increasing because of 
the economy of human force ; and wealth augmenting because 
of a growing power of association consequent upon the re- 
moval of governmental interference with the free exchange 
of physical and mental service. 

§ 4. The substitution of direct for indirect taxation being 
thus an evidence of progress, the opposite movement should 
be evidence of decline. That it has been so is shown in 
every page of history. 

In Attica we see it in passing from the days of Solon, 
when taxation addressed itself to fixed property alone and 
slaves were daily becoming free, to those of Demosthenes, 
when men were being rapidly re-enslaved, and taxation 
had been so extended as to embrace " all money and money's 
worth." 

In Italy the reader may contrast the days of Ancus Mar- 
tius when the towns of the Campagna paid an unvarying tax 
on fixed property, with that aristocratic period Vv'hen small 
proprietors were liable to have their farms plundered if they 
failed to answer the call to the field, where they served at 
their own expense while the booty passed into patrician 
chests. Returning home and finding their fields untilled, 
they became, of course, dependent upon their masters for the 
means of supporting life ; and hence it is that the Roman 
history of this period presents to view a constant series of 
contests between plebeian debtors and patrician creditors.* 
Still more striking is the contrast with the days of the 

* Every patrician house was a jail for debtors; and in seasons 
of great distress, after every sitting of the courts, hordes of sen- 
tenced slaves were led away in chains to the houses of the 
noblesse." — Niebohk : Uistory of Rome. 



418 CHAPTER XXXVI. § 5. 

Empire, when taxes had been laid on almost every possible 
transfer of property, and the land had become almost value- 
less because of the disappearance of the free population. 

In Holland land became early divided, and commerce in- 
/creased rapidly. Later, the thirst for trade producing a 
necessity for ships and colonies, constant wars caused such a 
taxation that commodities were said to be thrice paid for — 
once to the producer, and twice to the State. 

In Turkey we see reproduced the system of the Middle 
Ages of France, taxation referring only to the quantity of 
his products that can be squeezed from the cultivator; while 
adulteration of the coin and grinding taxes on transfers of 
movables render land too worthless to be made the subject 
of direct contribution. 

In India, with a population of more than 100,000,000, the 
revenue is wholly derived from taxes on labor and its appli- 
cation. To taxes on all the tools in use, from the fisherman's 
boat to the goldsmith's tools, are added enormous taxes on 
salt and opium, giving us a system of taxation the most 
grinding the world has yet seen, — purely personal from begin- 
ning to end. As a consequence, the price of land rarely 
exceeds thrice the taxes, and men perish for want of power 
to sell their labor. 

§ 5. In Great Britain the land and house-taxes originated 
in the reign of Wilh'am III. The first was variable, but 
being at length, in 1*798, fixed at one-fifth of the rental, an 
act was at the same time passed enabling the owners to buy 
off the tax, thus freeing their land forever from all contribu- 
tions to the public service. Almost simultaneously appeared 
a new theory of population having for its object that of 
proving that the supply of food diminished in its ratio to 
numbers, as numbers increased, doing so because of a great 
natural law in virtue of which the relation of master and 
slave must ultimately be re-established. 

The poor-houses were filled, and pauperism became almost 
the habitual condition of the laboring classes, while every 
movement tended to arrest the wheels of commerce and to 
fill the pockets of those who derived their means of support 
from the public treasury. " Taxes were piled on taxes, 
until they reached," says Sidney Smith " every article which 
enters into the mouth, or covers the back; or is placed under 
foot; taxes on every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, 
feel, smell, or taste ; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomo- 



OF DISTRIBUTIOX. 419 

tion ; taxes on every thing on earth, and in the waters under 
the earth ; on every thing that conies from abroad or is 
grown at home ; taxes on the raw material, taxes on every 
fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man ; taxes 
on the sauce which pampers man's appetite and the drug 
which restores him to healtli ; on the ermine which decorates 
the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal ; on the 
poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails 
of the coffin and the ribbons of the bride ; at bed or board, 
couchant or levant, we must pay. 

" The school-boy whips his taxed top ; the beardless youth 
manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle, on a taxed 
road ; and the dying Englishman, pouring his ujcdicine, 
which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid 
fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon the chintz-bed which 
lias paid twenty-two per cent., makes his will on an eight- 
pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who 
has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of 
putting him to death. His whole property is then imme- 
diately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, 
large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his 
virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and 
be is then gathered to his fathers, to be taxed no more." 

Thus far, as we see, the recent progress has been from tax- 
ation on fixed property towards taxes on property in motion, 
being the state of things which existed in the semi-barbarous 
countries of the East, and which prevailed in France and 
England of the feudal period. 

The history of direct taxation nearly closes with the 
repeal, in 1835, of the tax on houses. The result is that, in 
1854, there were collected £21,000,000 as duties on imports ; 
£16,U00,000 from excise ; £7,000,000 from stamps; £8,000,00il 
from horses, carriages, and railroad passengers; £7,500,00U 
from taxes on profits ; and £1,500,000 from taxes on epistolary 
intercourse and other minor sources of income ; making a total 
of £56,000,000, = $270,000,000, being $10 per head of the 
whole population, almost nine-tenths of which had beiMi 
derived from the stoppage of property, or ideas, on tiieir way 
from the place of production to th*at of consumption. Such 
is the form in which what is called freedom of trade presents 
itself under the British system. 

The people of India sell cotton at Id. per pound, buying 
it back in the shape of cloth at 20 to 40 ])ence. The cotton 
pays the dividends of the East India Company, the salary of 



420 CHAPTER XXXVI. § 3. 

officers, the freight of ships, hire of sailors, rent of warehouses. . 
tolls en railroads, commission of brokers, stamps on notes — ■ 
passing through thousands of hands, and contributing at every 
step towards the support of government. As a consequence 
of this, the Hindoo is too poor to buy cloth, while the Man- 
chester operative perishes for want of bread. 

So, too, is it in Carolina. Cotton leaves the plantation at 
six cents per pound, returning in the form of cloth at 60 
cents. In its course it has paid taxes in every shape, so large 
a portion having been absorbed on the road that the man 
who raised it remains a slave, while he who converted it can 
scarcely obtain a shirt. 

The real payers of English taxes are the people of all the 
countries that supply the raw materials of manufacture^ l>uy- 
incj them hack in a finished form. Counting, as they do, by 
hundreds of millions, evidence of the exhaustive character of 
the system is to be found in the trivial amount that is raised 
when compared with the number of the persons upon whom 
the taxes are assessed. 

§ 6. The Government of these United States has usually 
been misled by the erroneous idea that indirect taxation is 
the legitimate mode of raising the public revenue. At brief 
intervals, as in 1828 and 1842, tariffs were arranged with 
special reference to protection. Asa rule, however, revenue 
has been regarded as the special object of interference with 
foreign intercourse, protection having been granted to such 
extent only as was thought consistent with obtaining the 
largest receipts for the public service. Such was the policy 
adopted in 1816, 1834, and 1846. In all cases the results 
have been great apparent prosperity, large receipts at the 
treasury, large profit to capitalists at the cost of land and 
labor, followed by financial crises which have almost entirely 
stopped the societary circulation. 

The effects of this are seen in the facts already stated ; 
the experience of forty years having exhibited a steady in- 
crease in the quantity of wheat, flour, rice, tobacco, and 
cotton, required to be given in exchange for smaller quanti- 
ties of lead, tin, iron, copper, gold, and silver. That being 
the road towards barbarism, we have an explanation of the 
fact that, in the land where all men were once declaimed to be 
free and equal, "free society". is now declared to have proved 
" a failure." 

Desiring to understand the cause of this, the reader is re- 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 421 

quired only to turn to the diagram given above and to satii'fv 
liiniself of the fact that the road towards civilization and 
frijedom lies through the more close approximation of 'the 
prices of raw and finished products, while the British free- 
trade policy, so steadily here pursued, tends always towards 
the production of wider separation. The greater the space 
by which they are divided, the less must be the money value 
of land and labor, and the greater the necessity for depend- 
ence on indirect taxation. 

The countries in which that necessity least exists, are those 
in which commerce is gradually acquiring power over trade, 
in which the circulation is becoming more rapid, and in which 
laud and labor are gradually acquiring value — Belgium, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Germany, Spain, and Russia ; all of which 
follow in the lead of France in adopting the policy of Col- 
bert. Those in which it most exists, are Turkey, Portugal, 
India, the United States, being those that follow the lead of 
England in preferring the supremacy of trade to the extension 
of commerce. In all of them the prices of raw products and 
finished commodities recede from each other, laud and labor 
decline in value, and men become less free. 

§ 7. The more perfect the power of self-protection the 
more continuous becomes the demand for human effort, the 
more regular is its application, the larger is the quantity of 
production, and the greater the facility of accumulation. 
Every step in this direction is attended by a diminution in 
the necessity for dependence on governmental aid, and dimi- 
nution in the proportion of the products of labor required for 
the support of persons charged with the performance of gov- 
ernmental duties. 

The greater the power of accumulation the greater is the 
tendency towards subjugation of the richer soils, towards 
division of land, towards diversification in the demands for 
human faculties, towards increase in the proportion borne by 
fixed to movable capital, towards increase in the rapidity of 
.circulation, and towards the substitution of fixed and well- 
understood rents and taxes for the indirect taxation levied 
by means of claims for personal service, or interference with 
the movements of commerce. 

The greater the tendency towards direct taxation, the less, 
therefore, will always be the proportion borne by taxation 
for the support of government to the amount of production 
by the people. 



422 CHAPTER XXXVI. § 8. 

That such are the facts, is shown by the history of all ad- 
vancing communities of ancient and modern times. More 
especially is it shown in the recent history of France and 
Northern Europe. Enormous as is the political centraliza- 
tion of France, and burdensome as is her taxation in the forms 
of personal service and pecuniary contribution, her history 
for the last and present centuries presents a steady increase 
in the proportion of the product retained by the laborer, and 
diminution in that taken by the government. A century 
since, the company of Farmers General was the real ruler of 
the kingdom, paying the sovereign for the privilege of taxing 
his people at their pleasure. Their fortunes growing with 
the growth of taxes, they of course omitted no contrivance 
by means of which the contributions might be augmented. 
Taxation is still most oppressively heavy ; but so far as re- 
gards land while remaining in the hands of its owner, is a 
fixed and certain quantity, the payment of which is a guarantee 
against arbitrary demands by hosts of government agents, 
such as were of daily occurrence in the days of the early 
Bourbons. Although the price of landed property, as the 
reader has already seen, has more than doubled, the amount 
of tax has remained almost unchanged since the period of its 
first imposition, fifty years since — thus proving the diminu- 
tion in the proportion taken for governmental support that 
accompanies a gradual substitution of direct for indirect 
taxation. 

§ 8. The more rapid the circulation the greater is the tend- 
ency in the direction above described, the value of land and 
man increasing in the direct ratio of increase in the rapidity 
with Avhich consumption follows production. The slower the 
circulation the larger is the proportion taken by governments 
and the greater is the tendency towards indirect taxation. 
The first looks towards the man, recognized by Adam Smith 
as the subject of social science ; the last towards the slave — the 
subject treated of in Ricardo-Malthusian books — required, as 
he is, to give to his various masters a constantly-increasing 
proportion of a constantlj^-diminishing quantity yielded by 
the earth. 

Why not, then, it may be asked, at once abolish all the 
duties of excise, duties of customs, and other interferences 
with commerce, establishing perfect and entire freedom of 
intercourse between man and man throughout the world ? 
Such is the idea nt times suggested by men who hold that 



I 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 423 

(lie happiness and prosperity of men are to be advanced by 
extending the dominion of trade, and who see in the growth 
of the number and size of ships the most conclusive evidence 
of that advance. As well, however, might they ask, Why 
not give to each and every man a farm ? Why not make all 
men proprietors? Why not at once quadruple the wealth 
of the community, and thus enable every member of it to 
feel himself enriched ? In the natural course of things laud 
tends to become divided; men's faculties tend to become de- 
veloped; wealth tends to increase; the division between tiie 
few and the many tends towards the production of equality ; 
and taxation tends to become more direct. All these phe- 
nomena, however, are evidences of civilization, appearing 
invariabh' in all communities in which the circulation in- 
creases in rapidity and disappearing as the circulation dies 
away. The more the demand for human force tends to be- 
come instant upon the existence of the power to produce it, 
the greater is the tendency towards that state of things in 
which direct taxation becomes poasible. The longer the in- 
terval elapsing between production and consumption, the 
larger are the proportions borne by movable to immovable 
capital, and the greater must be the tendency towards seek- 
ing to obtain by indirect and deceptive means the supplies 
that cannot be directly asked for. Seeking proof of this the 
reader niay now turn again to the diagram in the previous 
pages, with a view to see where on the left he can find the 
means of direct taxation. Man is there a mere slave, and 
land is so utterly valueless that hundreds of square miles 
WiUild be given in exchange for a single dollar. Where, then, 
are the subjects of direct taxation ? 

Passing further east, the margin for profits decreases with 
constant diminiition in the power of indirect taxation. Land 
and labor steadily assume larger proportions, the slave of the 
earlier period being replaced by the freeman of the later one, 
and th-e wretched owners of vast bodies of land being replaced 
by tens of thousands of wealthv farn)ers, owners of the soil 
they cultivate. The man and his land may now be taxed ; 
but before they are so, the freenjan must be consulted as to 
the mode of taxation to be adopted, the extent to whicli it 
may be carried, and the pur|)oses to which the proceeds are 
to be applied. 

Taxation tends to become direct as men becorae_free; and 
the greater that tendency, the more rapid is the diminution 
borne by the claims of government to the power of the com- 



424 CHAPTEE XXXVI. § 9. 

uiunitj to meet them. Men become free as the prices of raw 
materials tend more and more to approximate, the former 
rising and the latter falling. That approximation takes place 
in the ratio of the existence of the power of association and 
combination — that, in turn, being found in the ratio of the 
diversity in the demand for labor. The more perfect the so- 
ciety, the more various the demands for mental and physical 
faculties, the more rapid must be the circulation, the greater 
the power of accumulation, the larger the proportion borne 
by fixed to movable capital, and the greater the power to ob- 
tain through direct taxation the means of meeting those ex- 
penditures required for maintaining order, and thus securing 
all in the peaceful enjoyment of the rights of persons and of 
property. 

Commerce becomes free as indirect taxation ceases to exist. 
The power of indirect taxation diminishes as the farmer is 
more and nioi'e freed from the oppressive tax of transporta- 
tion. That tax diminishes as the faculties of man are more 
and more developed, and as the power of association more 
and more arises. That it may arise and may extend itself, 
diversity in the modes of employment is an indispensable 
requisite. The production of such effects having been the 
intent and meaning of the protective tariffs of 1828 and 1842, 
and those effects having been realized not only in this country, 
but also in all of those which follow the lead of France in 
adopting the policy of Colbert, the experience of the world 
may be adduced in proof of the assertion, that tlie road to 
perfect freedom of commerce is to be found in the adoption 
of measures tending to the creation of a domestic market, and 
to the consequent relief of the farmer from that first and most 
oppressive of all taxes — the one resulting from the necessity 
for effecting change of place. Such precisely was the idea 
of Adam Smith when enlarging upon the advantages to com- 
merce resulting from combining tons of food with hundreds 
of pounds of wool, in the form of pieces of cloth, that could 
so readily be transported to the most distant quarters of the 
world. 

§ 9. The more perfect the commerce among its people, the 
greater is the value of land and labor, the less is the tax of 
transportation, the greater is the power for honest and direct 
taxation, and the greater the strength of the State. Commerce 
grows as employments become diversified, as individuality be- 
comes developed, and as agriculture becomes a science. Th>».t 



OF DISTRIBUTION. 425 

the countries which follow in the school of Colbert are be- 
coming stronger, has been proved by the facts, that Russia 
maintained her credit during her recent exhausting war, while 
Prussia maintained neutrality in despite of every effort of the 
Western Powers. That those which follow in the train of 
the economists of England are becoming weaker, is proved 
by the cases of Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, and the Indies of 
both the West and East. It is further proved by all the ex- 
perience of these United States — comparing the States of 
the South and West with those of the North and East, 
or the Union with itself, at different periods. Florida and 
Mississippi follow in the train of England, and stand at the 
present moment in a state of repudiation. California now 
does the same, while Massachusetts enjoys a credit equal 
with that of any country of the world. The Federal Gov- 
ernment extinguished its debt in 1835 by help of the pro- 
tective tariff of 1828 ; whereas, in 1842, v^'ith no war ujton 
its hands, it was unable to borrow at any rate of interest. 
The strength of the State grows with growth in the value of 
land and labor, and with increase in the proportion borne by 
fixed to movable capital. American policy tends towards 
increasing the movable capital at the expense of that which 
is fixed, and hence the growing weakness of the State. 

Every stage of progress towards increase in the proportion 
borne by capital that is fixed and that can be made the sub- 
ject of direct taxation, brings with increase of competition for 
the purchase of labor with constantly growing freedom of the 
laborer; whereas, every step in the opposite direction is atr 
tended by increase of competition for the sale of labor and 
increase in the power of the capitalist to dictate the terms 
upon which his property may be used. With few and brief 
exceptions American policy has tended in this latter direc- 
tion, and hence it is that the rate of interest has been so high, 
and that the belief in the divine origin of slavery "has been a 
constantly growing one. 



426 CHAPTER XXXVII. § 1. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

OF COMPETITION. 

^ 1. In the absence of competition for the purchase of labor-power, the labcrer becomd 
enslaved. That power the only commodity that cannot be preserved, even for an instant, 
beyond the moment of its production. 

g 2. The more the competition for the purchase of labor the more rapid the circulation, the 
larger the production, and the greater the power of accumulation. 

g 3. Competition for the purchase of labor tends toward freedom. The trader desires to 
produce competition for its sale. 

g 4. Trading centralization seeks to produce competition for the sale of raw materials and 
labor. Therefore adverse to the growth of value in land or man. 

§ 5. Effect of trading jentralization upon the condition of the British people. 

g 6. Trading centralization deteriorates the condition of the laborers of the world. Neces- 
sity for resistance thereto. 

g 7. Competition for the control of nature's services raises the value of both land and man. 

g 8. Competition for the purchase of labor tends to strengthen custom into law, in favor of 
the laborer. Competition for its sale tends to the annihilation of customary rights in 
favor of the capitalist. Where this last is found, the societary euculation becomes more 
sluggish, with coustant growth of the disease of over-population. 

§ 1. Finding no competition for the purchase of his ser- 
vices Friday was glad to sell himself for food and clothing, 
becoming Crusoe's slave. Had the island contained other 
Crusoes, their competition would have enabled him to make 
his selection among them all, exercising thus that power of 
self-government by which the freeman is distinguished from 
the slave. 

Will you buy ? Will you sell ? The man who has a com- 
modity, and must sell, is forced to ask the first of these 
questions ; obtaining, for that reason, ten, twenty, or thirty 
per cent less than what might otherwise be regarded as the 
fair market price. His neighbor, not being forced to sell, 
waits for the second, thereby obtaining more, perhaps, than 
the ordinary price. Such being the case with commodities 
that can be kept on hand waiting for a purchaser, to how 
much greater extent must it not be so in reference to that 
potential energy which results from the consumption of food, 
and which cannot be held over for even a single instant. 
The trader takes the market-price for his oranges, great as 
may be his loss ; he stores his iron, waiting for a better 
market. The farmer sells his peaches on the instant, low as 
may be the price ; but he holds his wheat and potatoes, wait- 
ing for an advance. The laborer's commodity being yet 
more perishable than oranges or peaches, the necessity for its 
instani sale is still more urgent. 



OF COMrETTTION. " 427 

The farmer and the merchant having; stored their sugar, or 
their wheat, can obtain advances, to be returned when their 
commodities are sold. The laborer can obtain no advance 
upon his present hour, his commodity perishing at the instant 
of production. It must be at once either scdd or wasted. 

Further, the merchant may continue to eat, drink, and wear 
clothing, his stock meanwhile perishing on his hands. The 
farmer may eat his potatoes, after failing to sell his peaches. 
The laborer must sell his potential energies, be they what 
they may, or perish for want of food. In regard to no com- 
modity, therefore, is the effect resulting from the presence or 
absence of competition so great, as in relation to human force. 
Two men competing for its purchase, its owner becomes a 
freeman. The two competing for its sale, become enslaved. 
The whole question of freedom or slavery for man is, there- 
fore, embraced in that of competition. 

§ 2. The man who can sell his own labor can purchase 
that of others. The more instant the demand for his services 
the more instant are his demands for those of others, the 
more rapid becomes the circulation, the larger the produc- 
tion, and the greater the tendency towards accumulation. 
Every man who has physical or menial eff"ort to sell is thus 
interested in promoting the rapidity of the societary cir- 
culation. 

This is equally true in regard to communities, those whose 
members find instant demand for all their powers having 
much to off'er in exchange, and being enabled to consume 
much of the produce of the labor of others. Every nation is 
thus directly interested in promoting rapidity of circulation 
in every other. The harmony of all real international in- 
terests is, therefore, perfect, all the laws of nature tending 
towards the establishment of freedom, peace, and happiness 
throughout the world. 

Such being the case, it follows that a course of proceeding 
in any one community, tending to lessen, anywhere, tho 
power of production, is an off'ence against mankind at large, 
and should be so regarded. 

§ 3. The Alabama planter tolerates no competition for the 
purchase of the labor of the persons who till his land. Re- 
quiring all to bring to him the products of their toil, he makes 
the division to suit himself. His share is large but the total 
product is very small, most of the lal)or-po\ver that has 



428 CHAPTER XXVIL § 4. 

been produced having been wasted because of the absence 
of competition for its purchase. As a consequence, he and 
his people have very little to sell, and have therefore little 
power to compete for the purchase of the labor of others. 
Slavery in any one community tends, therefore, towards the 
production of slavery in all. 

The trader, likewise, is most intolerant of competition. 
History is a record of efforts to maintain monopolies ; from 
the secret expeditions of the Phoenicians down to the anni- 
hilation of the cotton manufacture in India, and the extension 
over that vast country of patent laws in virtue of which 
machinery is forbidden to be improved without the consent 
of a people thousands of miles distant. It is, too, a record 
of wars for the same purpose : the Carthagenians having been 
as fully determined to prevent, at any cost, competition for 
the purchase of the potential energies of Central Africa, as 
were the Venetians and Genoese for those of Eastern and 
Western Europe, the Dutch for those of the Asiatic Islands, 
or the English for those of Jamaica or of India. 

In France in the days of the Valois, as in England in those 
of the Plantagenets, competition for the purchase of labor 
scarcely existed ; production was therefore small, and the 
power to make demand for the products of other countries 
was entirely insignificant. In both there has been a great 
increase in the competition for the purchase of service, accom- 
panied by a corresponding one in the prices of the rude 
products of the soil, and in both the freedom of man has kept 
pace with the growth of value in the land. The higher the 
Avages and the greater the amount of rent, the greater 
becomes the power of competition for the purchase of the 
produce of other lands, and the greater the tendency towards 
freedom abroad — that, in turn, tending to increase of freedom 
at home. Every community is therefore directly interested 
in the resistance, by all, of every measure tending to lower 
the value of land and labor. 

§ 4. Centralization being of two kinds, political and trad- 
ing, it is essential that they be here carefully distinguished 
from each other. 

The sovereign, desiring to centre power in himself, imposes 
heavy taxes ; but beyond the interference required for their 
collection or expenditure, he derives no advantage from 
any measure tending to lessen the power of association 
among his subjects. His people may combine for peaceful 



OF COMrETlTION. 429 

purposes, their power to contribute to tlie public revenue 
growing with tlie consequent increase of production. His 
interests and those of liis subjects are one and tlie same ; and 
hence it is tliat some of tlie most despotic countries of Europe 
have presented to view tlie most vigorous efforts in favor 
of movements tending to increase the competition for the 
purchase of the laborer's services, and of the earth's rude 
products. 

Directly the reverse of tliis is trading centralization, its 
primary object being that stoppage of circulation which in 
political centralization is but an incidental result. The 
trader desires to keep men apart from one another, and thus 
to produce a necessity for numerous changes of place and of 
ownership, at each of which their produce may be taxed. 

The power of the sovereign grows with growing diversity 
of emplo^'ment, with the development of human faculties, 
with increase in the proportion of fixed property, and with 
the growth of wealth. That of the trader grows with cir- 
cumscription of the range of employment, with increase in 
the proportion of movable property, with the dwarfing of 
human faculties, and with the growth of poverty and wretch- 
edness among those who are compelled to contribute to his 
revenue. 0/ all /onus of slavery the mod searching and 
exhaustive is that of trading centralization. 

Half a centur}- since India exported cotton cloth to all the 
w^orld, having first clothed the hundred millions of a popula- 
tion described by Sir Thomas Munro, as "not inferior ir 
civilization to the people of Europe." Political centralization 
then existed in its fullest force, but the sovereign power stood 
between the trader and those engaged in the production, con- 
version, and consumption of cotton wool. Trade, however, 
subsequently carried the day, compelling its unhappy subjects 
to submit to the free importation of cloth from Eur(Ji)e, while 
deprived of all power to impt^rt machinery, or artisans who 
could make it. The domestic manufacture almost disap- 
peared ; and then was wasted a large portion of the potential 
energies of a tenth of the human race, to the essential injury 
of the world at large. 

Half a century since these United States had established 
among themselves competition with Euru}ie for the purchase 
of cotton. Had this continued onward and undislurijcd, it 
would have grown to such an extent as to have i)r()duced 
throughout the planting States that competition <or the pur- 
chase of labor which leads inevitably to frced<)m. Obliged, 



430 CHAPTER XXXVII. § 5. 

however, on repeated occasions, to succumb to tlie assaults of 
distant tra.ders, the result has been that tlie American people, 
as well as those of India, have, during the whole of this 
period, been competing for the sale of their products, to 
the exaggeration of the evils of slavery where it exists, and 
its production where, as yet, it is not found. Exporting the 
rude produce of the soil, in both are seen exhaustion of the 
land, with growing tendency towards commercial and moral 
death, and political dissolution. In the one the government 
depends on monopolies of salt and opium for its support ; 
while in the other we witness (185*7) a frantic determination 
to extend throughout the continent a system that, seventy 
years since, was regarded by the most eminent men of the 
Southern States as a blight and a curse, requiring to be 
removed. 

Half a century since there yet existed competition for the 
purchase of Irish labor. Political centralization had long 
existed ; but it remained for that of the trader to annihilate 
all competition for the purchase of human energies at home, 
and all Irish competition for the purchase of those abroad. 
The consequence is that the many millions of Irish people do 
not make a market for the chief product of India and Caro- 
lina to so great an extent as a single million in Massachusetts. 

Competition by A for the purchase of the labor of B tends 
•to produce competition by B for that of C ; and so on to the 
end of the alphabet. All the communities whose policy tends 
in that direction, are therefore moving towards freedom for 
themselves and the world ; while those whose tendencies are 
opposite must be moving towards the establishment of 
slavery, both at home and abroad. Such is the fact ; and 
yet, strangely enough, while the first embrace many of the 
despotisms of Europe, the last are found in the two especial 
traders of the world, Great Britain and these United States, 
the self-styled friends of freedom, and patrons of the revolu- 
tionists of the world. 

§ 5, Cheap raw materials are, we are told, indispensable 
to the prosperity of the British people. If so, there can be 
no harmony of interests, cheapness of such materials being the 
accompaniment of barbarism, slavery, and valueless land. 
That it is not so, is evident from the pictures of vice, crime, 
and degradation, not exceeded in the world, which are pre- 
sented to us by eminent Englishmen. Cheap labor and cheap 
raw materials mean simjjly barbarism. Reading the works 



Ai 



OF COMrETlTION. 431 

of Dickons, Thackeray, or Kingslcy, we are over presented 
with pictures of an incessant struggle for the means of 
sut^tainina, life; while public documents confirm the sad 
truth, that as power has been obtained for commanding 
nature's services the condition of the people has not im- 
proved. 

Action and reaction are equal and opposite ; the commu- 
nity that devotes its energies to the stoppage of motion else- 
where, is stopped in its own. Had India, Portugal, Tuikey, 
and Jamaica, been encouraged to avail themselves of the 
powers of steam, and to develop the resources of the earth, 
.they would have had much to sell, and would have become 
better customers to England ; as it is, producing little, they 
can buy but very little. England herself, as has l)een shown, 
no longer produces things to be given in exchange for those 
she needs; her whole consumption of tea, sugar, coffee, and 
other commodities, being supplied by profits derived from 
standing between the people who labor to produce, and those 
who need to consume. As a consequence, the competition 
for the purchase of human service diminishes when it should 
steadil}^ increase. 

§ 6. We are told, however, that all nations may now man- 
ufacture if they wish, that machinery may be exported, that 
artisans are free to go abroad, and that the people of England 
rejoice in the extension of manufactures. All people, too, 
are free to read, but before they read, they must be taught. 
The growth of the habit of association conies with wealth ; 
but wealth can never grow under a system that tends to ex- 
haustion of the soil. That man may acquire wealth, he must 
have a scientific agriculture, which ahcai/s folloivs, and never 
precedes, manufactures. By forbidding the existence of the 
latter centralization forbids the creation of the former, and 
hence it is that the decline in the value of land and labor 
i)econies more rapid from year to year in all the countries of 
the world whose people are subjected to the British free- 
trade system. 

Freedom of commerce has, we are told, much advanced. 
AVhat, huvvever, have been the causes of that advance ? 
Forty years since the British navigation laws were in full 
force. They have now ceased to exist. Why ? Because of 
the determined resistance of these United States, Prussia, 
and other countries. Forty years since, Germany exported 
wool, and imported it in the form of clolli paying twelve 



432 CHAPTER XXXVII. § 1. 

cents per pound for the privilege of passing it through 
English looms. That charge is no longer made. Why ? 
Because Germany established competition with England for 
the purchase of wool. At that time cotton, and all other raw 
materials, were taxed on their entrance into British ports ; 
but step by step, as France, Germany, Russia, and other 
countries, became competitors for their purchase, the duties 
disappeared. Every advance towards freedom of interna- 
tional commerce, and freedom among men, during the last 
forty years, has resulted from a resistance on the part of 
other nations to British trading centralization. The road to 
perfect freedom of commerce is to be found in the adoption, 
of the system advocated by Colbert, that one by means of 
which men are enabled to combine their efforts for develop- 
ing the powers of the earth, and for producing that state of 
things in which competition for the purchase of labor will be 
universal, while competition for its sale will cease to have 
existence. 

§ 1. The more the competition for nature's services the 
more rapid is the advance in the value of land and labor, her 
power being limitless in its extent, and her disposition to 
render service being equal to all demands that can be made. 
A century since steam power was scarcely known in England : 
now it does the work of 600,000,000 men. Like England, 
Turkey and India have coal ; and yet the people of those 
countries scarcely know the use of steam. Why it is so, is, 
that English policy has invariably sought the annihilation of 
competition for obtaining control over a great natural force 
provided by the Creator for the use of all mankind. A cen- 
tury since, the command of the services of iron was trivial, 
that used in England having been chiefly obtained from 
Russia: now it is produced by millions of tons. India and 
Turkey, too, have coal and iron ore, but they cannot mine 
them. Why ? Because great capitals are now regarded as 
the true " instruments of warfare" upon the industry of other 
countries. Tiie American people have coal and iron to an 
extent unknown in any other portion of the world, and 
capable of furnishing power equal to that of thousands of 
millions of men ; yet are they busily engaged in exhausting 
themselves and their land in the effort to obtain a quantity 
of iron so very trivial, that the average consumption might 
be more than supplied by means of the proper application of 
the waste labor of a single city Why is it so? Because 



A 



OF COMPETITION. 433 

tliey follow in the train of teachors from whom they learn 
that the road to prosperity lies in the direction of cheap raw 
materials and cheap labor. Slavery, therefore, grows, grad- 
ualh' taking the place of freedom. 

France, Germany, and Northern Europe generally, are be- 
coming competitors for nature's services ; and therefore it is, 
that, in all those countries the prices of raw materials 
steadily approximate, the land acquires value, and the true 
MAN tends, more and more, to make his appearance on the 
stage. 

§ 8. " Competition," says Mr. Mill, '• has only become in 
any considerable degree the governing principle of contracts 
at a comparatively modern period. The farther we look back 
into history, the more we see all transactions and engage- 
ments under the influence of fixed customs. The reason is 
evident. Custom is the most powerful protector of the weak 
against the strong ; their sole protector, where there are no 
laws or government adequate for the purpose. Custom is 
a barrier which, even in the most oppressed condition of 
mankind, tvranny is forced in some degree to respect. To 
the industrious population in a turbulent military community, 
freedom of competition is a vain phrase ; they are never in a 
condition to make terms for themselves by it ; there is always 
a master who throws his sword into the scale, and the terms 
are such as he imposes. But though the law of the strongest 
decides, it is not the interest, nor in general the practice, of 
the strongest to strain that law to the utmost ; and every 
relaxation of it has a tendency to become a custom, and every 
custom to become a right. Rights thus originating, and not 
competition in any shape, determine, in a rude state of 
society, the share of the produce enjoyed by those who pro- 
duce it. The relations, more especially, between the land- 
owner and the cultivator, and the payments made by the 
latter to the former, are, in all states of society, but the most 
modern, determined by the usage of the country. Never, 
until late times, have the conditions of the occupancy of land 
been, as a general rule, an attair of competition. The occu- 
pier for the time has very commonly been considered to have 
a right to retain his holding while he fulfills the customary 
requirements ; and has thus become, in a certain sense, a co- 
proprietor of the soil. Even when the holder has not acquired 
this fixity of tenure, the terms of occupation have often beer, 
fixed and invariable." 
37 



434 CHAPTER XXXVII. § 8. 

Custom is " a powerful protectoi' ;" and whether nv ti iiliall 
advance towards freedom or decline towards slavery, depends 
on the decision of the question, whether custom shall be 
strengthened into law, or shall pass away, leaving the weak ■ 
wholly at the mercy of the strong. 

in Jb^'ance, the laborer retained his customary rights an(i 
gradually acquired more, until at length the land became 
divided among a mass of free proprietors, holding their little 
properties free frum all claims but those of the State. In 
(iermauy, Denmark, and Northern Europe generally, such 
has been, everywhere, the tendency, custom having become 
law, and the prosperous small proprietor having taken the 
place of the wretched serf. In all these countries compe- 
tition for the purchase of labor increases yearly, their policy 
being based upon the idea of approximating the prices of raw 
materials and finished commodities, and thus lessening the 
trader's power. 

Turning now to the countries which follow in the train of 
England, we Hod in Scotland a total abolition of customary 
rights, hundreds of thousands of people, whose title to the 
land was equal with that of their lords, having been expelled 
from their little holdings with a savage cruelty that has rarely 
elsewhere been exceeded. 

In Ireland we see custom gradually giving way until the 
whole people become enslaved by a middleman class who 
live by the plunder of the men who own the land, and the 
wretched people by whom it is occupied. 

Looking next to India, once the home of thousands of 
prosperous communities, we see customary rights disappear- 
ing, and with them millions of small proprietors. 

Turning now to the centre of this system, and tracing the 
history of the poorer classes, we lind a custom early prevail- 
ing, of providing for the poor widow and her fatherless 
children, for the lame and the blind, for the diseased of body 
and mind. With the growth of commerce, custom passes 
gradually into a law, and the statute of Elizabeth establishes 
ilie right of such persons to claim support from those around 
them, honest poverty being held to be a misfortune, and not 
a crime. Modern science, however, having proved that mat- 
ter tends to take its highest form, that of man, more rapidly 
than the lower ones of cabbages and potatoes, poverty has 
become a crime to be visited by the severest punishment, it 
being, as we are told, " an indubitable truth that if," by any 
exercise of Christian charity, " we stand between the error" 



OF COMPETITION. 435 

vN'lucli leads to over-population " and its consequences," wiiieli 
are poverty, wretcliedness, and deatli, " ue become partici- 
pants in the crime !' 

Jn all these latter countries trade increases in power from 
year to year ; in all, consequentl}', there is a growing com- 
petition for the sale of labor. 

Coming now to the United States, wo find, during the half 
century that followed the peace of 1783, a slow, but certain 
tendency towards the establishment of domestic commerce 
During all that period, consequently, the custom of freedom 
was graduall}' ripening into law, the right of the laborer, 
black or white, to prolit of competition for the purchase of 
his services having been, in that ))eriod, fully established in 
all the States north of Mason and Dixon's line. South of it, 
too, the tendency was in the same direction, the Virginia 
Convention of 1832 having fully entertained the question of 
the right of man to sell his services in open market. 

Simultaneousl}', however, free-trade was adopted, at the 
cost of domestic commerce, by the generally dominant political 
party, as being the high road to prosperity ; and since that 
time, with the exception of the period from 1843 to 1847, the 
whole energies of the country have been turned in that direc- 
tion. The result is seen in the gradual disappearance of the 
custom of freedom, each successive year producing local laws 
in virtue of which both master and slave are deprived of the 
exercise of custoniar}' rights, the one being prohibited from 
receiving either freedom or instruction, tlie other, from grant- 
ing either. 

Five-and-twenty years since, freedom was regarded as the 
custom of the country, slavery existing onh^ in consequence 
of local laws. Now, the courts decide, that slavery is the 
custom, freedom holding its existence under local laws. 

Look where we ma}', we see competition for the aale of 
labor increasing in the countries that follow the lead of 
England ; while competition for its pu7-chane increases in 
those which follow in the lead of France. In the latter it is 
that the soil becomes improved, and the supply of food 
t,nd clothing increases more rapidly than population. 



436 CHAl'TER XXX VIII. § I. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

OP POPULATION. 

2 1. That tho earth may be subdued, man must multiply and increase. Fecundity and 
development in the inverse ratio of each other. Man should therefore increase but 
very slowly. However long the period of duplication, if the procreative tendency is a 
fixed and positive quantity, the time must arrive when there will be but standing-rooni 
for the population. Oan the Creator have subjected man to laws, in >irtue of which 
he must become the slave of nature and of his fellow-man ? 

\ 2. Physical science testifies that order, harmony, and reciprocal adjustment, reign 
throughout all the realms it has yet explored. Modern economists have mistaken facta 
for laws. Laws are rules, permanent, uniform, and universal in their action. Theory 
of Mr. Malthus deficient in all these characteristics. The procreative function, in 
common with all others, placed under the law of circumstances and conditions. Are 
war and pestilence required for correcting errors of the Creator, or has the Creator so 
adjusted the procreative tendency as to provide the means of correcting human 
error ? 

^ 3. Power of progress in the ratio of the perfection of organization. Man, the being most 
susceptible of change — passing from the mere animal and becoming the real man, re- 
sponsible to his family, his fellow-men, and his Creator. Responsibility grows with th» 
growing power of association, and with division of the land. ' 

g i. Growth of population modified by the development of that feeling of responsibilitji 
which comes with the ownership of land. 

g 5. Recklessness and poverty consequent upon absence of diversity in the modes of em- 
ployment and consolidation of the land. Adaptability of the procreative power to the 
ciic uinstances in which a, community is placed. 

I 6. Consolidation of the laud, and the disease of over-population, necessary consequences 
of a policy which looks to the cheapening of labor, and of the rude products of the 
earth. Britisli system tends to the production of these effects. Its results, as exhibited 
in the condition of the English people. 

J 7. l-ioneer life favorable to increase of numbers. Effects of American policy as exhibited 
in the duration of life. 

8. Reproductive function not a constant quantity. General predominance of the nutri- 
tive and sexual functions. Antagonism of the animal propensities and higher senti- 
ments. Fertility of the drudges of an imperfect civilization. Infertility of the hunter 
tribes. Activity of the intellect checks procreation. Cerebral and generative powers 
of man mature together. Fecundity in the inverse ratio of organization. A self-acting 
law of population secures harmony in the growth of numbers and of food. 

§ 1. "Be fruitful and multiply," said the Lord, "and re- 
plenish the earth and subdue it." That it may be subdued 
men must increase in number, it being only by means of com- 
bination with his fellow-men that man acquires power to direct 
the forces of nature to his service. 

The tendency to assume the various forms of life is greatest 
at the lowest point of organization, the progeny of micro.s- 
copic beings counting by millions at the close of a single 
week ; whereas the period of gestation in the whale and the 
elephant is long, and the product rarely exceeds a single 
individual. Such are the extremes, but the rule holds good 
at every stage ; thus furnishing the law : — that fecundity 
and development are in the inverse ratio of each other. In 



I 



OF POPULATION. 431 

Virtue of that fixed and certain law man, the head of creation, 
should increase least rapidly, and, carrying out the same idea, 
the fecundity of the human race should itself diminish as the 
peculiarly human faculties are stimulated to action, and as 
MAN becomes more developed.* 

The periods within which the population of the principal 
nations doubles itself varies greatly, France requiring more 
than a century, and Great Britain more than half a century, 
while the duplication of American numbers is accomplished 
in little more than thirty years, f 

So far as regards the ultimate destiny of the human race, 
it is, however, of snjall importance whether, in obedience to 
fixed and immutable laws, a certain duplication is to take 
place in 30 or 100 years, the only difference being, that 
under the first, there must be some 700 years hence a million 
of persons on the earth for one that now exists, whereas, in 
the other, thrice the time will be required for producing the 
same effect. 

What would be the effect of such increase ? OI)vioi»sly 
so to crowd the earth, as eventually to leave but standing 
room for the population, food growing constantly more scarce, 

* " The plant and tlie animal are not lequired to become a diff»^r- 
ent tiling from what thej already are at the moment of their birth. 
Their idea, as the philosophers would say, is realized in its fulness by 
the fact alone of their material appearance, and of their physical 
organization. The end of their existence is attained, for they are 
only of a physical nature. But with man it is quite otherwise. 
Man, created in the image of God, is of a f ee and moral nature. 
The physical man, however admirable may be his organization, is 
not the true man ; he is not an aim, but a means ; he is not an end, 
like the animal, but a'beginniug. There is another, new-born, but 
destined to grow up in him, and to unfold the moral and religious 
nature, until he attain the perfect stature of bis master and pat- 
tern, who is Christ. It is the intellectual, the moral, the spiritual 
man." — Guyot, jLurth and Man. 

t The extent to which American population has been affected by 
immigration has never until now been properly appreciated. Tlie 
National Almanac for the present year, 1S()4, gives us a series of 
carefully-prepared tables by which it is shown, that since 1790 the 
number of immigrants and their descendants has exceeded 21,0t.i0,tMK) 
— tliat the annual percentage of increase resulting from the excess 
of births over deaths is only 1.38 — and that the time required foi 
duplication from domestic soiirces alone exceeds 50 years. 

Admitting the accuracy of the views now thus presented, we 
should find in the much more rapid increase of the negro race, 
from domestic sources alone, strong confirmation of the accuracy 
of the theory of population given in the present chwpter. 



438 CHAPTER xxxyin. | 2. 

and the land-owner becoming constantly more the absolute and 
uncontrolled master of the laborer. 

Having once admitted that the procreative tendency is a 
positive quantity, insuring a duplication in any certain 
period, then it cannot be denied that slavery is the ultimate 
lot of the great mass of the race ; nor, that the tendency in 
lliat direction is greater now than at any former period, his- 
tory presenting no instance of increase as great as that 
exhibited in the last half century, in England, Ireland, and 
America. 

Can such things be ? Can it be that the Creator has been 
thus inconsistent wkh himself? Can it be, that after having 
instituted throughout the material world a system the har- 
mony of whose parts is absolutely perfect, He has, of 
design, subjected man, the master of all, to laws which mu.st 
produce universal discord ? Can it be, that after having 
given to man all the faculties required for assuming the mas- 
tery of nature, it has been a part of His design to subject 
hinf to laws in virtue of which he must become nature's 
slave ? Let us inquire. 

§ 2. Physical science, in all those departments of knowl- 
edge in which it can demonstrate the truth of its discoveries, 
testifies that order, harmony, and reciprocal adjustment, 
reign throughout the elements, and in all the movements it 
has yet explored. In all the realms of natural history thus 
far successfully cultivated, fitness of conditions, coherence of 
parts, unity of design, afford logical evidence that the universe 
is one in system, one in action, and one in aim. Arriving, 
however, at the natural history of man, we find theorists 
violating the analogies of reason, and imagining discords 
in the very place where, of all others, the harmonies of 
creation should meet together, and where the wisdom and 
Vjoneficence of the Creator should vindicate themselves in the 
liighest perfection of orderly arrangement. 

The gross error that here so obviously exists is traceable 
to the one common source of all false philosophy : the mis- 
taking of facts and their apparent dependencies for the laws 
which govern them. The dispersion of ancient populations, 
and their frequent invasions of the lands of other nations, the 
constant flow of emigrants from older countries in modern 
times, and the death of half the inhabitants of densely-peopled 
regions before their arrival at half the allotted period of 
humanity, such are the phenomena chiefly relied upon by 



OF rOPULATION. 439 

those who seek to demonstrate the existence of an original 
discord between the law of human fertility and the earth's 
capacity for the accommodation of the human race. 

That the people of early communities suffered from want 
of food is an established fact. That the laboring population 
of many modern communities are in a situation nearly similar, 
cannot be doubted. Tiiese facts have been made the subject 
of a scientific formula which may thus be stated : Man tends 
to increase in a geometrical ratio, whereas, food cannot, 
under the most favorable circumstances, be made to increase 
in a ratio greater than the arithmetical one. Population, 
therefore, increases 128 times while food can be increa.sed 
but 8 times, poverty and wretchedness being the necessary 
results. 

These results being clear as figures can make them the 
waste of life recorded by history has been inevitable, the 
earth being incapable of affording food, or even standing- 
room, for the myriads of her noblest offspring, were they 
permitted to attain maturity. A catastrophe is, therefore, 
always imminent, the exposure of the Creator's blunder being 
prevented only by the " positive checks" of war, famine, and 
pestilence, operating from time to time as they are I'equired 1 
Philosophy so frightful as this should not be suffered to 
pass unchallenged. Can it be true ? Is the fertility of the 
species thus observed at its highest rate the laio of the 
subject ? 

A law, for the purpose of our argument, may be defined 
as — a rule, permanent, uniform, and univeisal, in its action ; 
enabling us in all cases to reason from effects to causes, or 
from causes to effects. lias this theory such universality ? 
For an answer the reader need only look around the world, 
finding in some portions of it a slow rate of increase ; in 
others a rapid one ; while in a third, population steadily 
declines. For a further answer let him turn to the statement 
given l^y Mr. Malthus himself in reference to the absence of 
fertility among the aborigines of the American continent, and 
its abundance among those of the Pacific islands. Look 
where he may he will find no evidence of the general existence 
of any such fertility as has been assumed by the advocates of 
the over-population theory. It would, indeed, be contrary to 
the very nature of things, the reproductive function having 
been, in common with every portion of the human organiza- 
tion, placed under the law of circumstances and related con- 
ditions. Climate, health, education, occupation, and habits 



440 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § 2. 

of life, affect it as much as they affect any other organic 
function. It can be pushed to excess, or reduced to deficiency, 
being affected by all the causes which act upon body, mind, 
or morals ; and for this simple reason, that it is a vital func- 
tion, dependent ii.pon the organism of which it is a part. 

Procreation must not, in contradistinction to every other 
animal function, be assumed to be a fixed, invariable action, 
ruled, as is inorganic matter, with mechanical rigor. Nutri- 
tion is not commensurate with the quantity of food consumed, 
being greatly modified by the power of digestion, the vigor 
of the general health, and the degree of exercise taken. The 
fluids elaborated by the secreting organs, as saliva and milk, 
are familiarly known to be liable to the greatest changes, 
being increased or diminished in quantity in proportion to 
the excitement of the glands. In like manner every action 
of the living body is modified by the distribution of the vital 
force amongst the organs which compose the complicated 
system of the human frame. 

That the earthly fortunes of the human race must have 
been in the contemplation of the Creator ; that the changes 
of condition to wliich it should be subjected in its passage 
from a state of isolation and barbarism to one of combination 
and civilization, must have been legislated for; that the laws 
fitting it to those changes must have been wrought into its 
constitution ; are suppositions whose truth must be admitted 
unless we are prepared to hold that human nature forms an 
exception, and the sole exception, to the order and harmony 
everywhere else existing throughout the universe. Can it 
then be presumed that the working of the vital mechanism 
requires to be protected against its own inherent mischief, 
by a corrective waste of its proper products ? Is it not far 
more probable that the high rate of human fertility occasion- 
ally observed is the one which necessarily attends that stage 
of society in M^hich security is so far increased as to free its 
members from any efforts at self-protection, and yet to make 
but small demands on any of their faculties but those requirea 
for the rude labors of the field ? 

Take the case of England. Already peopled in the days 
of Ca3sar, its population at the close of the fourteenth eentuiy 
was but about 2,400,000, and yet a single family could, at 
the rate supposed by the Malthusian school to be the law of 
growth, have risen in that time to thousands of millions 
Three centuries later the number had little more than doubled. 
Sixty years later (1760) it was but 6,500,000, the increase 



OF POPULATION. 441 

Iiavinj!; been less than 30 per cent. ; and yet by 1830 tliat 
number had doubled. During all this time the procreative 
power had obviously been a very variable quantity. It may 
l)e said that these great differences had their cause in the 
increased duration of life resulting from improvement in the 
quantity and quality of food, clothing, and lodging, the num- 
ber of children born having been the same. Admitting this, 
we are led to the remarkable conclusion, that increase in 
the duration of life resulting from increased command of the 
necessaries and comforts of life, leads inevitably to the estab- 
lishment of pauperism and slavery as the normal condition 
of the masses of the human race. 

At times, after war or pestilence, fertility is much in- 
creased, and the question arises — which is cause, and which 
etfec* ? Is war required to correct an error of the Creator, 
or has He himself supplied the corrective required by human 
error ? Does natural health require the establishment of an 
ulcer by the drainage of which plethora is to be relieved ? 
or, is the large supply of fluids escaping from a suppurating 
surface provided to meet an accidental drainage ? The human 
frame, threatened with exhaustion by an accidental waste of 
its vital fluids, can, In self-defence, double, treble, or quad- 
ruple its productive power; but is this rate of vital activity, 
in one direction, the law of the structure, demanding the 
correction and restraints of disease ?* 

Vegetable life exhibits similar phenonena. A sugar-tree, 
in full vigor, tapped for the first time, will yield but half a 
pound of sugar in the season. Let it, however, be tapped 
for several seasons, and it will yield three pounds, without 
the health of the tree being afifected. Need the question be 
asked, whether the tree, full of life and vigor, required the 
drainage to relieve the plethora, or whether the drainage 
induced a surplus flow of sap to supply the waste ? It may 
with equal propriety be asked — Has the drainage of popula- 
tion from Ireland produced a tendency of vital force in the 
direction of procreation ; or, has the drainage been required 
to correct an excess of the procreative tendency ? 

* The wars of Louis XIV and XV caused a great deficiency in the 
supply of men as compared with women ; yet at the opening of the 
Revolution the proportions had been restored. The wars of the 
Revolution and the Empire caused such waste of men, that in the 
year IX. the excess of females was 725,225. Later, that excess in- 
creased, and in 1820 amouul< d to 868,325. In 1850 it had, however, 
declined to 193,252. 



442 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § 3. 

It has been intended here to show : first, that none of the 
functions of the human body has any such fixed and deter- 
mined rule of action as permits of its being made the basis 
of arithmetical formulae ; next, that they vary under varying 
conditions, from deficiency up to excess ; third, that they 
vary in their form, under self-adjusting laws, in obedience lo 
the final cause of the being's existence ; and lastly, that 
there is no instance, throughout the whole of nature's reahu, 
in which the known laws of the subject thwart their own 
object, or break the harmony of the general scheme of 
creation. 

It may be said that the germs of life perish in a thousand 
seeds for one that finds root and bears fruit. The answer, 
however, is simple, they being the proper food of beasts, birds, 
and men, to that end appointed. Having performed that nvork 
their office is fulfilled. Beasts, birds, and fishes, prey upon 
each other, man, in turn, subsisting upon them all. Here, 
again, we find no violation of the order of creation, these in- 
ferior animals being plainly destined to violent death, and 
thus mercifully relieved from the incapacities of age. As 
they are furnished with those instincts which are called into 
action by the necessity of providing for their young, the con- 
tinuance of the races is thus secured. Having no filial 
affection impelling them to provide aid for the aged, they 
have no hospitality, no family economy, no capabilities either 
for social service or for such self-development as would make 
prolonged life a blessing to them. . Consequently, we find 
nothing in their constitution which predicts life extended be- 
yond an average maturity. 

The inferior animals subserve the purposes of man. His 
existence, however, has no such reference to a higher class 
of beings here as to warrant the idea that his life may be 
crippled or abridged without a violation of the harmony of 
that system of which he is the head. It is not the divine 
order, but .man's disorder, that limits his earthly life so far 
within the period beyond which he ceases to be useful to his 
fellows, or to find enjoyment for himself. 

§ 3. In the inorganic world the compounds are constants ; 
the composition of coal, clay, and granite, being the same 
now that it was a thousand years since. In the organic 
world we find a susceptibility of change, the fruits and 
flowers developed by cultivation being greatly superior to 
♦ he wild ones ; and the dog and horse showing themselves 



OF POPULATION. 443 

capable of receiving instruction. Look whore v\'c niaj. we 
see evidence of this great law : That the poice.r of procjress 
in in the direct ratio of the dissimilarity of the parts and the 
consequent perfection of organization. 

In man we tind the highest physical organization combined 
will) a power for intellectual development that places him far 
al)ove all other creatures, and here we find no constants; 
all portions of the man being in a constant coarse of change : 
individuality becoming more developed in one portion of 
society, and less so in others; the feeling of responsibility 
augmenting in one man while decaying in others; one ^com- 
munity becoming more provident while another b^.comes 
more I'eckless ; one nation progressing towards civilization 
while another declines with equal rapidity towards barbarism. 
In one, freedom increases daily and hope in the future 
prompts to self-respect and forethought ; while in another, 
slavery advances and recklessness exhibits itself as the off- 
spring of despair. 

The savage is nature's slave, driven by want to the com- 
mission of acts that, abstractly considered, are highly 
criminal. How far, however, is he responsible, disposed, 
perhaps, as he would be, to be humane and honest, if he 
could be so and still preserve his life ? Wandering over ex- 
tensive surfaces he seeks a small supply of food. Little 
prompted to sexual intercourse, he values little either his 
child or its mother. In the Spartan institutions we see 
Lycurgus deeming it necessary to stimulate the sexual 
appetite, while seeking to relieve the parent from all re- 
sponsibility for his children. In the Pacific Islands sexual 
intercourse is the chief enjoyment of life, infanticide reliev- 
ing the parent from all responsibility for his offspring. 

Man becomes a responsible being, a real man, as land is di- 
vided and he becomes free. The societary motion then becomes 
rapid and regular, commerce increases, agriculture rises into 
a science, and rude products and finished commodities steadily 
a])proximate in their prices. He loses responsibility as land 
becomes consolidated ; the societary motion then becoming 
fitful and irregular, commerce declining and trade acquiring 
power, agriculture becoming less a science, and the prices of 
raw materials and finished products becoming more widely 
separated. In the first, men and women become more 
thoughtful, the matrimonial tie being chiefly sought for the 
comforts of home and family. In the second, both become 
more reckless, sexual intercourse being sought as a meana 



m CHAPTER XXXIX. § 4. 

of the indulgence of passion, and as being, indeed, almost 
the only gratification in which the poor may legally indulge. 

§ i. " The division of land," says one of the most observ- 
ant and philosophical of recent British travellers,* after a 
careful examination of the principal nations of Europe, 
" carries witliin itself a check upon over-population, and 
the consequent deterioration of the social condition, 
which is totally wanting in the other social system." In 
proof of this proposition he furnishes a lively picture of the 
elevated standard of comfort and of morals prevailing among 
•the present proprietors in certain portions of Switzerland, 
where he had spent much time ; and of the thoughtful prudence 
which there presides over all that concerns the contraction 
of marriage. 

" In France," as he tells his readers, "property is widely 
diffused, population is increasing, yet the number of births is 
diminishing. Of those born many more live to be added to 
the population, although the actual births are in proportion 
almost one-tli.ird fewer in numbers than in countries in which 
property is not diffused as it is in France. Have we not 
here," he asks, " a most satisfactory proof of the right 
working of the great social experiment now in progress iu 
that great country ?" 

It is, however, " a country of contrasts." Division of the 
land tends to make of each man a self-governing and responsi- 
ble being, political centralization, meanwhile, tending to make 
him a mere instrument in the hands of the State. Taxation 
is terrific in amount ; but thereto is added compulsory 
military service, for a long period of years, at merely 
nominal wages. Centralization causes enormous expendi- 
tures in and around Paris, the attractions of tlie capital 
counteracting those of the provinces, and lessening the power 
of association in the rural districts, as a consequence of 
which there is great suffering whenever the demand for 
labor, or the supply of food, is much diminished. The law 
of the composition of forces requires careful study from all 
who would become proficient in social science, there being 
no machine whatsoever that is subject to the action of so many 
and so various forces as the societary one. Modern political 
economy, on the contrary, teaches, that all the evils of society 
arc the results of one great force constantly impelling man 

* Laing : Notes of a Traveller. 



OF roruLATiON. 445 

in a wrong direction, increasing tlie number of moutlis as 
the means of feeding them diminish. 

The reader has seen evidence of the extraordinary extent 
to which the land of Denmark has been divided ; and that 
•the condition of the people furnishes "living evidence of the 
falsity of the theory that population increases more rapidly 
than subsistence, when the country is held by small working 
proprietors." 

In Germany land is constantly changing hands, all classes 
finding themselves enabled to purchase it. The conscious- 
ness that they are not debarred from rising in the social scale, 
and that they can purchase a house and farm of their own, gives, 
says an English writer of high authority, " to the laborer of 
(hose countries where the land is not tied up in the hands 
of a few, an elasticity of feeling, a hopefulness, an energy, a 
pleasure in economy and labor, a distaste for expenditure 
apon gross sensual enjoyments, and an independence of 
character which the dependent and helpless laborers of 
England can never experience." 

Hope is the mother of industry, and industry of temperance 
and self-respect. " In the German and Swiss t6wns," says 
Mr. Kay, "there are no places to be compared to those sources 
of the demoralization of our town-poor, the gin-palaces." 
Temperance is general, its existence being ascribed by this 
intelligent traveller to the civilizing effects of their education, 
and to the careful habits whit^h the hope of purchasing land 
nourishes in their minds. 

§ 5. Turning now to Turkey, Portugal, and Jamaeia, 
countries in which the power of association has almost 
passed away, we find population slowly but steadily dimin- 
ishing as land becomes more consolidated. In India, a 
country in which local centres once abounded, with admirable 
provision for instruction of the young, those centres have 
disappeared, and the population becomes more and more 
divided into the two great classes of the enormously rich and 
miserably poor. 

In Ireland, the closing portion of the last century was 
spent under a regime of protection analagous to that which 
now exists throughout central and northern Europe. Com- 
merce then grew steadily, the demand for labor increasing, 
and the community at large advancing with a rapidity not 
then excelled in any portion of continental Europe. 

By the act of union all was changed. Manufacture? 
38 



4 46 CHAPTER XXXIX. § 5. 

having bpen banished from the land, the demand for human 
powers was limited to the mere brute force required for the 
lowest order of the labors of the field. Land at any rent, or 
starvation, being the only choice left the people, need we 
wonder that hope fled, or that education, books, and libraries, 
disappeared, leaving in their place the recklessness and im- 
providence that have since led to so great an increase of 
population ? Famine and pestilence followed, but still the 
numbers grew, and for the reason, that the real man was 
gradually disappearing and the mere human animal taking 
his place. 

The Irish cotter-tenant has no property in land ; and all 
that he can save goes into his landlord's ])Ocket in the shape 
of rent. He is not, as were cotter-tenants formerly in Scot- 
land, allowed to pay his rent in kind ; that is, by giving a 
certain proportion of his crop, retaining the rest for the main- 
tenance of his family. It is in gold that it must be paid. 
" It would be just as reasonable," says Mr. Laing, "to make 
them pay in French wines for the squire, or Parisian dresses 
for the lady. Their land produces neither gold, silver, nor 
Irish bank-notes. It is not reasonable to make the peasant, 
the ignorant man, pay in those commodities, (they are but 
commodities like wines and silks), and to make simple men, 
inexperienced in trade, a prey to market-jobbers, running the 
double risk of selling their own commodities, and buying 
those in which their landlords clioose to be paid their rents." 

How this system tends to produce improvidence is well 
exhibited in the following passage : — 

" Money rent deteriorates the condition of a small tenant 
in two ways : The more honestly he is inclined, the more 
poorly and meanly he must live. He must sell all his best 
produce, his grain, his butter, his flax, his pig, and subsist 
upon the meanest food, his worst potatoes and water, to 
make sure of money for his rent. It thus deteriorates his 
standard of living. He is also tempted by money-rent out 
of the path of certainty into that of chance. It thus de- 
teriorates his moral condition. Ask him six barrels of oats 
or barley, or six stone of butter or flax, for a piece of land 
which never produced four, and his common sense and ex- 
perience guide him. He sees and comprehends the simple 
data before him, knows from experience that such a crop can- 
not be raised, such a rent afforded, and he is off to England 
or America to seek a living. But ask him six guineas per 
acre for a piece of land proportionally as much over-rented 



I 



OF POCULATION. 44T 

as the otlier, and he trusts to chance, to accident, to liigh 
iiio^ket prices, to odd jobs of work turning up, to summer or 
linivest labor out of the country, — in short, to he knows not 
what; for he is placed in a false position, made to depeml 
upon the chance of markets, and on mercantile success and 
profits, as much as upon industry and skill in working his 
little farm." 

The documents published at various times in regard to this 
country bear testimony to the fact, that those who have 
property, even to the small extent of ten pounds, exercise a 
])rudent foresight in reference to marriage ; whereas, those 
who have nothing marry without hesitation. Nevertheless, 
modern economists assert, that "the low and degraded con- 
dition into which the people of Ireland are now sunk, is the 
condition to which every people must be reduced whose 
numbers increase faster than the means of providing for their 
comfortable subsistence." 

The proposition might, however, be differently stated. 
Across the Channel, Mr. MeCulloch, to whom we are in- 
debted for the passage here given, had in full view a country, 
that of Belgium, in which a much more crowded population, 
on a less fertile soil, was advancing rapidly in civilization. 
Why this difference ? Why should the people of Ireland 
perish, while those of Belgium prosper? Because the .system 
of the one has looked to the reduction of a whole people to 
the condition of mere beasts of burden ; while that of the 
other has tended to their elevation to the condition of the 
true MAN, the being of power. 

When men most resemble animals they look most to 
sexual intercourse as their only means of enjoyment; and 
they will have most children, provided the woman continue 
chaste. The chastity of Irish women is proverbial ; and to 
this cause, combined with the low condition of the people, we 
must attribute much of the rapidity of Irish increase ; those 
ver}^ qualities which, under a sound system, would produce 
the greatest good, having here a most injurious effect. 

In several of the countries above referred to, the effect of 
the stoppage of the societary circulation has been a diminu- 
tion of the population ; whereas, in Ireland, the reverse has 
been produced, furnishing evidence of the adaptibility of the 
human animal to circumstances. Unlike the people of those 
communities, the Irishman was placed between two other 
populations speaking the same language with himself Among 
tliem there was found an outlet for surplus numbers . and 



448 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § G. 

this increased the recklessness of both sexes in contracting 
the marriage tie, the feeling of duty to themselves or their 
children disappearing in the gulf which had swallowed up all 
their hopes for the present or the future.* 

Centralization — especially trading centralization — tends to 
produce inequality of condition ; hence it is that the annihil- 
ation of Irish and Indian manufactures has contributed so 
largely to produce consolidation of British land. 

§ 6. Coming now to the home of the over-population 
theory, we have already seen that in England the small 
proprietors have almost disappeared, the 200,000 land-owners 
of eighty years since being now represented by little more 
than 30,000. At that time the population was 1,500,000, 
having increased but 10 per cent, in seventy-five years. Now 
it is estimated, for 1855, at 18,186,914, having increased 150 
per cent, in a period but little longer. Growth of numbers 
has, therefore, kept pace with a consolidation of the land 
that places one class above and another below the reach of 
hope — a state of things tending more than any other to cause 
development of the merely animal passions. 

Consolidation driving the laborers from the soil while im- 
proved machinery expelled them from the factory, the poor 
were thus made poorer as the rich grew richer. As the Act 
of Union closed the factories of Ireland, her people were 
forced to emigrate to the place at which the taxes were dis- 
tributed, their competition of course throwing the English 
laborer still more upon the " tender mercies" of the capitalist. 
From year to year the small proprietor was seen to pass into 
the condition of a day laborer, and the^ small employer, 
mechanic, or tradesman, into that of a mere receiver of 
wages — the whole people thus tending to become divided 
into two great classes, the very rich and the very poor, the 
master and the slave. 

* "For a whole generation man has been a drug in this country, and 
population a nuisance. It has scarcely entered into the heads of 
economists that they would ever have to deal with a deficiency of 
labor. The inexhaustible Irish supply has kept down the price of 
English labor, whether in the field, tlie railway, the factory, the 
army or the navy ; whether at the sickle, the spade, the hod, or 
the desk. We believe that for fifty years at least, labor, taking its 
quality into account, has been cheaper in this country than in any part of 
Europe; and that this cheapness of labor has contributed vasty to 
the improvement and power of tlie country, to the success of all 
mercantile pursuits, and to the enjoyment of those who have money to 
tpend.'^ — London Times. 



OF rOPULATION. 44& 

As England became flooded with the wretched people from 
the sister isle, driven from home in search of employment, the 
wealthy found it easier to accomplish the "great works" for 
which the country has been indebted to the "cheap labor" 
of Ireland, and the greater the influx of such labor the more 
rapid was the decline in the power of both Ireland and Britain 
to furnish a market for English manufactures. Hence arose 
a necessity for looking aljroad for new markets to take the 
place of those before existing at home; and thus cheap labor, 
a consequence of the system, became, in its turn, a cause of 
new efforts for still further cheapening labor. As the Irish- 
man could no longer buy, it became necessary to expel the 
Hindoo from his own market. As the Highlander was ex- 
pelled, it became necessary to underwork the spinners and 
weavers of China. As the Bengalese are impoverished, there 
arises a necessity for filling Burmah and Borneo with British 
goods. Pauperism and recklessness lie necessarily at the 
root of such a system, based, as it is, upon the idea of a per- 
petual antagonism of interests. The result is seen in the 
facts, that the condition of the agricultural population is 
steadily deteriorating ; that in despair of any improvement in 
their condition they marry early, and under circumstances so 
totally destructive of morality, that infanticide prevails to a 
frightful extent ; and that demoralization is progressing with 
a rapidity scarcely elsewhere to be exceeded.* 

* "The accounts we receive from all parts of the country show 
that these miserable cottages are crowded to an extreme, and that 
the crowding is progressively increasing. People of both sexes 
and of all ages, married and unmarried, parents, brothers, sisters 
and strangers, sleep in the same rooms, and often in the same 
beds. One gentleman tells us of six people, two of whom were 
man and wife, sleeping in the same bed, three with their heads to 

tlie top, and three at the foot of the bed Nor are these solitary 

instances, but similar reports are given by gentlemen visiting in 
ALL parts of the country." — Kay, Social Condition of Eiujland. Vol.1, 
p. 472. 

" It was declared by the coroner of Leeds, and assented to as 
jii'obable by the surgeon, that there were, as near as could be cal- 
cuhited, about three hundred children put to death yearly in Leeds 
alone, that were not registered by the law. In otlier words, three 
linndred infants were murdered to avoid the consequences of their 
living and these murders, as the coroner said, were never de- 
tected." — Leader. 

'•It has been cleai-ly ascertained, that it is a common practice 
among the more degraded classes of poor in many of our towns, to 
enter their infants in these (burial) clubs, and then to cause their 



4.50 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § T. 

§ 7. Pioneer life, where person and property are reasonably 
secure, is favorable to increase of numbers, isolated men being 
little stimulated to the exercise of any but the merely phy- 
sical faculties. Therefore it is that in the new States of 
North America we find the most rapid increase of numbers. 
In the order of nature, however, this should change as the 
real man becomes stimulated to action, economy, thoughtful- 
uess, and a desire for higher enjoyments, becoming the charac- 
teristics of the people. Such, too, would be the changes 
observed under a system of policy which tended towards in- 
creasing the power of combination and developing a scientific 
agriculture. The one pursued has, however, been merely a 
continuation of that colonial state the essential object of 
which was that of stimulating the dispersion of the people 
subject to it, and compelling them to limit themselves to the 
raising of rude products for distant markets, the proper work 
of the barbarian and the slave. 

Of vital statistics for the Union, ■ there are none. The 
census returns of 1850 gave 2,555 persons over 100 years. of 
age ; while in France, out of nearly 36,000,000 there were but 
102. Beyond this fact we have little of general application. 
Massachusetts is the only State that presents us with reliable 
statistics. From them we learn how excessive is the propor- 
tion borne by foreign marriages, births, and deaths, to the en- 
tire number. Of 2,536 men married in Boston in 1856, 1,503 
were foreigners, and more than half the women were also 
foreign. Here, too, we find an extraordinary destruction of 
infant life, more than a fifth of all the deaths in the State 
occurring in the first year, those of the first five years being 
more than 40 per cent, of the whole. How far these facts 
apply to the whole Union there is no means of knowing; 
but in New York city we find that, whereas in 1817 the 
deaths under five were but one-third of the whole, in 1857 
they were seven-tenths ! Of the colored population of that 
city, the deaths were to the births more than 2 to 1. 

In no other country do we meet with such remarkable con- 
trasts ; gi'eat length of life seen side by side with so extraor- 
dinary an infant mortality. In the 8 years ending with 
1855 the average age, at death, of males of all professions, in 
Massachusetts, vvho had survived 20 years, was nearly 63^ 

death, either by starvation, ill-usage, or poi.son 1 What more hor- 
rible symptom of moral degradation can be conceived? One's mind 
revolts against it, and would fain reject it as a monstrous fiction. 
But, alas t it seems to be but too true." — Kay, Vol. I. p. 433. 



I 



OF POrULATION. 451 

years. On the other hand ; whereas, in the city of Baltimore, 
from 1831 to 1840, the deaths were as 1 to 43, they are now 
1 in 40 ; while, in New York, the proportion has increased 
as follows : — 

1810 l.in 46 1825 1 in 34 

7815 I in 41 1855 1 in 28J 

1820 I iu 37 

For the new States we have no statistics ; but the general 
fact presents itself, that those who are driven by an unwise 
policy prematurely to commence the work of settlement are 
constantly endeavorinir to cultivate rich soils in the alxsence 
of the conditions required for the preservation of health and 
life. Disease and death are the necessary consecpienccs, the 
system winch crowds the cities at the cost of life thus pro- 
ducinjz; the same effects throughout the West. 

§ 8. The human body consists of a multitude of parts, 
with an equal variety of offices and endowments — the heart, 
arteries, and veins, beinir the organs of circulation ; the mus- 
cles, those of motion ; the glands, of secretion. The abdomi- 
nal viscerae are concerned with digestion ; the thoracic, wnth 
respiration; the sexual organs having the charge of repro- 
duction. To the brain and nerves are committed sensation, 
perception, volition, intellection, and emotion ; and especially, 
the supreme function of co-ordinating the actions of all the 
other organs'and thus securing that concert and unity needed 
for perfect oi-gaiiization. 

To the aggregate of these various organisms there must 
be a limit of vital force, some certain point at which it reaches 
its ultimatum. It is a consequence of such limitation, that 
upon an equal or unequal distriljution of this vital power 
among the several organs will depend the respective efficien- 
cies of each and all. The total vital force is liable to great 
inequality of distribution ; not only in those diversions of 
energy from one set of organs to another that we see to occur 
on every change of occupation, but steadily and hal)itually 
throughout the whole of life. In some persons the muscular 
i-^ystem is far more occupied than the mental. In others, the 
nutritive organs absorb n)uch of the general vigor which it is 
their destination to support. In a smaller number, the intel- 
lectual and moral powers are exerted to the injury of the 
nutritive and muscular systems; while in women, the repro- 
ductive system, in some one or other form, trenches largely 
upon the intellectual faculties. 



(52 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § 8. 

All these irregularities are found within the limits of 
what is called health. In disease, the disturbance of the 
balance of the various functions becomes much more marked. 
A strong man struck down with fever has his nervous 
sensibility excited and his circulation exaggerated, while 
the secreting and muscular system are nearly powerless. 
With every nerve tingling with excitement, with the 
brain in delirium, and the blood-vessels in a state of rude 
commotion, the patient is prostrate with muscular debility, 
and the action of the skin and viscera is almost entirely 
suspended. 

Thus both in health and disease the various offices of the 
living body may undergo great modifications of activity. It 
may be said, generally, that the vital force cannot be habit- 
ually concentrated upon any one part of the structure except 
at the expense of other portions. It is, however, almost 
universally true, that those functions which minister to the 
animal life, and those which serve for the continuance of the 
race, prompted, as they are, by instinctive forces, absorb the 
largest share of the system's strength to the detriment of 
those nobler faculties which require education and discipline 
for their full development. 

While such antagonism of the functions is thus a general 
result of the vital organization, it is curious to observe that u 
special relation of this kind obtains between the nervous and 
reproductive powers. Mere physical effort does not seem 
to be unfavorable to fecundity, the slaves of our Southern 
plantations and the laborers of Ireland being amongst the 
most prolific of mankind. The drudges of our imperfect 
civilization employ their muscular strength under very little 
nervous excitement, the action of their mental powers being 
at the lowest rate possible to rational creatures. The well- 
known chastity and infertility of the hunter tribes, on the 
contrary, is in striking adjustment with their circumstances. 
Like the beast of prey, the hunter requires a hundred-fold 
larger territory for his support than do men of pacific habits. 
llis life is one of excessive toil, requiring not only severe 
muscular exertion, but the exercise of agility, cunning, vigi- 
lance, fortitude, and moral resolution, qualities whose exertion 
makes heavy drafts upon the cerebral apparatus, and tends, 
proportionally, to withdraw the vital power from the func- 
tion of reproduction. 

Another fact affords confirmation of the views now sug- 
gested. In the order of nature the power of reproduction 



OF rOTTLATIOX. 453 

appears in the individual about tlie time that tlie inlellectual 
and moral powers attain a force sufficient to control the 
instincts, the brain thereafter losin<^ none of its balancing 
power, but rather gaining upon the propensities with advance 
in age. This correspondence of development and continence 
marks a closely fitting relation of combination between them. 
Only in man is the sexual impulse equally active, equally 
responsive to restraint at all seasons. Unlike the lower ani- 
mals, he has no annual season of love, irrepressible and irre- 
sistible. The propensity beginning with the dawning vigor 
of his intellect, is thus placed under the control of reason and 
sentiment, functions of the cerebral system whose efficiency 
is in direct proportion to the healthy development of the 
system of which they are a part. 

It is not, however, by moral resistance, alone, that the 
admirable ends of providential order are secured, (he law being 
looven into the very texture of the reproductive organs. A 
phyiiical law here adjusts the balance, maintains the harmony, 
and achieves the beneficent results desired. 

The law of the balance between the nervous and sexual 
functions is corroborated by the facts of comparative phvsi- 
ology. The queen ant of the African territories lays 80,000 
eggs, and the hair-worm as many as 8,000,000 in a single 
day. Above a million of eggs are produced at once by the 
codfish, whereas in the strong and sagacious shark few are 
found. The higher ranks of reptiles are still less fertile ; and 
among the mammalia, those which quickly reach maturity 
produce numerous litters, while those that are better provided 
with brain produce annually but a single litter. Higher in 
rank are those which produce singly, the series terminating 
with the elephant, who, in virtue of his nobler nervous sys- 
tem, and its accompanying reasoning powers, presents him- 
self as the least prolific of them all. 

The general law of life may be thus stated : — 

The nervous system varies directly as the power to main- 
tain life : 

The degree of fertilit}^ varies inversely ns the development 
of the nervous system, animals with larger brains being the 
least, and those with smaller the most, prolific: 

The power to maintain life, and that of procreation, an- 
tagonize each other, that antagonism tending perpetually 
towards the establishment of an equilibrium. 

Chemical analysis, though less accurately ascertained than 
might be wished, presents itself in aid of the views tliua sug- 



454 CHAPTER XXXVIII. § 8. 

gested ; exhibiting the fact that the sperm cells of the fecun- 
dating fluid, and the neui'ine, or essential portion of the 
cerebral substance, possess in common one element, unoxy- 
dlzed phosphorus, by which they are specially characterized. 
Of this substance no less than 6^ per cent, enters into the 
solid contents of the adult brain. In advanced age it falls 
to 3f, and in idiots it is less than 3. The evidence afforded 
by experience and by physiological laws is, however, more 
conclusive than that obtained by examination of the struc- 
ture. Nothing connected with the question is more fully 
recognized than the general antagonism of the nervous and 
generative systems. Intense mental application, involving 
great consumption of the nervous element, is accompanied 
by diminished production of sperm-cells, the excessive pro- 
duction of these latter being, in like manner, followed by 
defective cerebral energy frequently amounting to imbecility. 

How this antagonism afl'ects the female system is less 
known ; but it appears highly probable that the provision of 
nervous matter, as well as of nutriment to the embryo, limits 
the supply of nervous* ..atter to the maternal system. It is, 
too, highly probable that the uterine function, beginning with 
puberty and continuing until the commencement of old age, 
is the more efficient counteractive of cerebral force in the sex. 

Further, there is abundant reason for believing that certain 
kinds of nervous action are more efficient than others in 
counteracting the activity of the instincts, alihough the 
physiology of the brain is not yet sufficiently advanced to 
render us adequate service here. We know that the employ- 
ment of the mind in passional, imaginative, scientific, moral, 
or devotional applications has widely different effects upon 
the propensities, some ministering to their growth while 
others counteract it. 

That men of great mental activity are generally unprolific, 
has frequently been remarked. Occasionally it becomes pos- 
sible to trace the movements, in this respect, of large bodies 
of men, and whenever it is so we meet with facts tending to 
establish the idea that the extinction of families follows 
closely upon high development of the mental faculties. 

Twenty years since, the number of British peers was 394, 
of whom no less than 272 were the result of creations 
subsequent to 1160. From 1611 io 1819 no less than 753 
baronetcies had become extinct; and y-et the total number 
created had been less than 1400. Precisely similar facts are 
found in the noble families of Europe. So was it, too, in 



OF rorL'LATioN. 455 

ancient Rome, Tacitus telling us that, " about the time that 
Claudius enrolled in the patrician order such of the senators 
as M-ere recommended by their illustrious birth and the 
merits of their ancestors, the line of those families styled bj 
Komuliis'the first class of nobility,' was almost extinct." 
Even those of more recent date, created in the times of 
C'a?sar and Augustus, were well nigh then exhausted. 

Coming to more recent times we find that of the fifteen oc- 
cupants of the Presidential chair in this country, seven have 
been ciiildless, while the total number of their children lias 
been little more than twenty. The same fact meets us almost 
everywhere. Napoleon, Wellington, the Foxes, Pitts, and 
other distinguished men, not having, as a rule, left behind 
them the children required to fill the void created by their 
decease. How it has been with Chaptal, Fourcroy, Berze- 
lius, Berthollet, Davy, and the thousand other distinguished 
names, scientific, literary, and military, we have little means 
of knowing with any certainty ; but what we do know leads 
to the conclusion that their existing representatives do not 
number more than half as many as they did themselves. 

In the town of Berne, from the year 1583 to 1H54, the 
sovereign council had admitted into the Bourgeoisie 487 
families, of which in 1783 only 108 remained. Similar facts 
are given in relation to the freemen of various towns and 
cities in England, all tending to prove that the excitement 
of trade is as unfavorable to reproduction as is that of 
science or of politics. 

Look where we may we find that the reproductive power 
in man is no more a constant quantity than is ainy other of 
his powers. Jt may be stimulated to excessive activity by 
such a course of action as tends to reduce him to the con- 
dition of a mere animal, annihilating the feeling of pride in 
himself, and of responsibility to his Creator or to his fellow- 
man. It diminishes as his various faculties are stimulated 
to action, as employments become diversified, as the societary 
action becomes more rapid, as land becomes divided, and as 
he himself becomes more free. Such, we believe, is the self- 
adjusting law of population. 

The nearer the consumer to the producer the greater 
must be the development of the real man, and the greater 
the tendency towards perfect harmony in the demands Mpon 
the earth for food, and in Tier power to meet the drat'ts *.hm 
men require to make. 



456 CHAPTER XXXIX. § 1. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

OP FOOD AND POPULATION. 

J 1. Population makes the food come from the rich soils of the earth, depopulation 

' driving men back to the poorer ones. Increased regularity in the supply of f )od con- 
sequent upon the increased demands of a population that is growing in numbers am', 
in power. Dmiinution in the waste of humau force that attends increase in the si pply 
of food. 

§ 2. Substitution of vegetable for animal food. Causes the action of man upon nature to 
become more direct, thereby diminishing friction and increasing power. 

g 3. The mineral world co-operates in diminishing man's dependence on the animal one. 
Diminution in the demand upon man's physical powers, and in the quantity of food re- 
quired to supply the daily waste. 

g 4. Tendency of the lower animals to disappear. Consequent diminution in the supply 
of carbonic acid. Increased demand for supplies of that acid which attends the exten- 
sion of cultivation. Consequent necessity for increase in the number of men Wonder- 
ful beauty of all natural arrangements. 

g 5. That man may profit by those arrangements he is required to conform to that law 
of nature which demands that the consumer and producer take their places by each 
other. Population pressing upon subsistence in all communities by which it is violated. 

? 6. Destructive effects of British policy in causing the exhaustion of the countries that 
f )Uow in the lend of her economists. Tendency in all of them towards centralization, 
slavery, and death. 

7. Simplicity and beauty of the laws which regulate the demand for food, and its supply. 
Perfect harmony, throughout nature, in the adaptation of means to ends. 

§ 1. That man may increase there must be increase in the 
supply of food. That the latter may increase men must 
^row in numbers, it being only by means of the power of 
combination that man is enabled to control and direct the 
earth's forces, and to pass from the condition of nature's 
slave to that of nature's master. Population makes the food 
come from the richer soils, with constant increase in the 
return to labor ; whereas, depopulation drives men back to 
the poorer ones, with constant decline in the ability to obtain 
the necessary supplies of food and clothing. 

Crusoe, at first dependent entirely on his powers of appro- 
priation, could obtain no food but that which nature was 
content to offer. In time, however, acquiring a slight degree 
of power, he was enabled to compel her to labor for him, 
the su]>ply of food then becoming much more regular, he 
himself becoming more independent of changes of the 
weather, and the demand upon his powers being much 
diminished. The wild man of the West needs no less than 
eight pounds of meat per day, yet does he often find at the 
close of days expended in the chase, that he has scarcely 
obtained as much as would fully suffice for even a single one. 



OF FOOD AND TOPULATION. 457 

Kven when successful he finds a growing difficulty of trans- 
portation, the distance between his lodge and the place at 
which he finds his food tending steadily to increase. Gorgitig 
hin)self for the moment, he leaves for the crowds and wolves 
the larger portion of the product of his labors. Gluttony 
and starvation go, thus, hand and hand together throughout 
that portion of societary history in which man is found ex- 
isting as. the slave of nature. Famines and pestilences, 
too, alternate with one another, the result being found in 
the fact, that numbers increase but slowly even where popu- 
lation does not tend entirely to disappear, as is the case 
throughout the extreme West. 

In the shepherd state, supplies become more regular, evi- 
dence of growing human power then exhibiting itself in a 
diminution of the food required for meeting the daily waste, 
and in the growing reproductive force of the animals that 
man has tamed, the power of procreation being here, as 
everywhere, a variable quantity. In time, however, 
machinery is obtained, by means of which the earth is com- 
pelled to give forth products which can be used for human 
food without being first converted into meat, the rude agri- 
culture of early days then making its appearance among the 
poorer soils of the hills, and oats, rye, or even wheat being 
cultivated. Irregularity of supply is, however, the charac- 
teristic of the period, grain being greatly in excess of the 
demand at one time or place, and famine decimating the 
population at others. Progress, nevertheless, has been made, 
a pound of flour, made from either rye or w^heat, furnishing 
a larger amount of nutritive matter than is contained in 
thrice as many pounds of beef or pork, even when free from 
bone. 

Further power is now obtained, every step of man's pro- 
gress being but the preparation for a new and greater one. 
Richer soils being cultivated the return to labor steadily in- 
creases, the six bushels to the acre of the earlier period 
being replaced by the thirty bushels of the later one. Im- 
proved machinery of conversion, too, economizes various 
portions of the product that had at first been wasted. Culti- 
viitioQ becoming more and more productive, the pea, the 
bean, the cabbage, the turnip, and the potato, of which the 
earth yields by tons, take tlie place of wheat of which the 
yield is counted by bushels, and of grass that must be changed 
in form to fit it for human food ; every step in that direction 
being attended by an increase in the number of persons who 
39 



458 CHAPTER XXXIX. § 2. 

can draw support from any given surface, and by growth in 
the power of combination for obtaining the means of further 
progress. Each half acre thus cultivated yields more food 
than can be obtained from a thousand acres, when roamed 
over by the wretched savage of the West. 

Gradual improvement in the machinery instituted by the 
Creator for proportioning the supply of food to the demand 
of a constantly-growing population, here exhibits itself in 
the facts : — 

That the waste of human powers in the search for food, and 
the quantity of food required to supply that waste, are con- 
stantly decreasing quantities ; that man is gradually substi- 
tuting vegetable for animal food ; that the quantity of food 
produced increases in the direct ratio of that substitution ; 
that the various utilities of the things produced become more 
and more developed ; that human effort is daily more 
economized ; and that with every stage of progress there is 
an increase of power for directing and controlling the forces 
of nature, manifesting itself in the clearing, drainage, and 
cultivation of soils whose very wealth had rendered them 
inaccessible to the early cultivator. 

§ 2. What, however, is the effect of this substitution of 
vegetable for animal food ? The answer to this question 
is found in the fact, that rapacious animals, the shark, the 
lion, the tiger, and the bear, increase but slowly, even when 
at all ; whereas, American Pampas afford conclusive proof 
of the rapidity with which the ox and the horse, consumers 
of vegetable food, may be increased. So, too, it is with man, 
the rapacious savage, a prey to hunger on one day and a 
glutton on the next, being little capable of reproduction 
when compared with the civilized man, whose dependence 
on the vegetable kingdom is large, even where not exclusive.* 

The more direct the action of man upon nature the less is 
the necessity for animal food, and the less is the friction, but 
the greater is his power to please his appetite. The more 
he is enabled to subdue the richer soils to cultivation the 

* "Fruits, roots, and the succulent parts of vegetables, appear 
to be the natural food of man ; his hands afford him a facility in 
gathering them ; and his short and comparatively weak jaws, his 
short canine teeth not passing beyond the common line of the 
others, and his tuberculous teeth, not permitting him either to feed 
on the herbage or devour flesh, unless those aliments be previously 
prepar<id by the culinary process." — Cuviek. 



or FOOD AND rOPULATIOX. 459 

greater is the tendency towards placing slieep upon tlie 
poorer lands, and thus insuring a full supply of mutton. 
The larger the yield of turnips and potatoes the greater is 
his abiliL^' to obtain efficient machinery for taking the cod 
and the herring. The more perfect the power of association 
♦;he more is he enabled to cultivate the oyster and to people 
the ponds and rivers with tish, every stage of progress in that 
direction giving increase of reguhirit}' in the supply of food, 
while developing the various individualities of the man who 
is thus engaged in placing himself in the position of master 
of nature, of his passions, and of himself. 

§ 3. Is it, however, in relation to food alone that we ob- 
serve this tendency to the substitution of the vegetable for 
the animal world ? It is not, the same tendency being every- 
where observable, and constituting one of the strongest 
evidences of advancing civilization. Wool is superseded by 
the cotton plant, of which a single acre furnishes more pounds 
than could be obtained from a hundred emploj'^ed in raising 
sheep. Flax and cotton supersede the silk-worm, as furnisher 
of clothing. Gutta percha and muslin take the place of 
leather. Caoutchouc lessens the demand for both hides and 
wool, paper, meanwhile, furnishing a cheap substitute for 
parchment. 

So, too, is it with the mineral kingdom, the steel pen super- 
seding the quill, mineral manures superseding animal excre- 
ment, and the horse of iron rapidly taking the place of the 
one composed of muscle, bone, and sinew. Every new 
development of mineral treasures tends, in turn, towards in- 
crease in the number of local centres of action, towards the 
growth of commerce, towards decline in the taxes of trade 
and transportation, towards increase in the facility of obtain- 
ing improved machinery, and towards increased rapidity in 
the societary circulation ; with constant increase in the pro- 
portion of the societary powers that 'may be given to 
• augmentation in the supplies of the raw materials of clothing 
and of food. 

This, however, is not all. The better his clothing the less 
is the waste of his body, and the le.ss his need for food. The 
more perfect the machinery of transportation the less is his 
need for clothing, travelling by railroad involving less ex- 
penditure of animal heat than that performed on the hor.se's 
back. The nearer the place of consumption to that of pro- 
duction the less is the demand for soldiers, sailors, and 



460 CHAPTER XXXIX. § 4. 

wagoners, always large consumers of stimulating food. The 
more perfect the power of association the less is the necessity 
for going from home, and the less is the need for either food 
or clothing, the attractive and counter-attractive forces thus 
exhibiting themselves, here as everywhere, constantly in- 
creasing in their intensity, as the societary circulation be- 
comes more rapid. Look, therefore, where we may, we find 
a constant tendency towards the perfect adaptation of the 
earth to the wants of a growing population, every increase 
in the power of combination being accompanied by diminu- 
tion in the quantity of raw material required for the main- 
tenance of human life, and increase in that which may be ob- 
tained in return to any given amount of labor. 

§ 4. With increase in the numbers of mankind, the lower 
animals tend to diminish in their numbers, and gradually to 
disappear, vegetable products tending, as steadily, to increase 
in quantity. Were it otherwise, the world must become less 
and less fitted for man's residence, carbonic acid being more 
and more produced, and the air declining in its powers for 
tlie maintenance of human life. Increase of vegetable life 
tends, on the contrary, to promote the decomposition of that 
acid, thereby increasing the supply of the oxygen required 
for maintenance of animal life, while diminution in the con- 
suuiption of animal food is attended by decrease in the quan- 
tity of oxygen required for human purposes. 

The extension of cultivation is indispensable to increase in 
the supply of food. That extension involves, of course, a 
gradual extirpation of animal races that now consume so 
largely of the products of the earth, and were they not to be 
replaced by men the production of carbonic acid would 
speedily diminish, with corresponding diminution in the re- 
productive powers of the vegetable world. The more numer- 
ous the men and women the greater is the store of force 
required for the production of vegetable matter, the more 
rapid is the circulation, the greater is the production of car-' 
bonic acid, and the greater the power for vegetable reproduc- 
tion. The more complete the power of association the more 
perfect becomes the cultivation, the greater is the develop- 
ment of the powers of the land, and the more admirably does 
the beauty of all natural arrangements exhibit itself in the 
perfect adjustment of all the portions of the wonderful sys- 
tem of which we are a part. 

Nevertheless, although the annual product of a single acre 



OF FOOD AND POPULATION. 40 J 

of land, employed in raising wheat, is capable of sustaining 
" animal warmth, and animal motive-power, in a vigorous 
man, during a period of more than two and a half years," 
and although each sucli man is capable of cultivating many 
acres, we car. look in no direction without seeing that men 
are suffering for want of food. So, too, it is with regard to 
fuel, and to the materials of clothing, as well as houses, and 
all other of the commodities required for the maintenance of 
healtli and life. The ques;tions, therefore, naturally arise — • 
Why is not more fc)od produced ? Why is the supply of cot- 
ton and wool so small ? Why is not more clothing made ? 
Why is not more coal mined ? Why are not more houses 
built ? The reply to these questions may now be given. 

§ 5. The nearer the place of production to that of con- 
sumption, and the closer the approximation of prices of raw 
materials and finished products, the smaller must be the pro- 
portion of time and mind required for the labors of trade and 
transportation ; the larger that which may be given to 
developing the powers of the earth ; the greater the ability 
to maintain the powers of the land ; the larger the return to 
labor ; the greater the tendency towards increase in the power 
to obtain supplies of food, clothing, and fuel ; and the greater 
the ability to command tlie use of houses, mills, farms, and 
machinery of every kind. 

For proof that such have been and are the facts we need 
but look to the Moorish Empire in Spain ; to the Netherlands 
of the days of the Burgundian princes, and thence to the 
present time ; to France of the present, and to all the coun- 
tries now following in her lead in maintaining the policy ini- 
tiated by Colbert. In all of these agriculture tends to beconie 
more a science, with constant increase in the yield of the 
land, in the development of human powers, in the rapidity of 
circulation, in the power to maintain commerce at home and 
abroad, in the creation of local centres of action, and in the 
freedom and power of man. For further proof we need but 
look to Ireland, India, Jamaica, Turkey, and Portugal, coun- 
tries that follow in the lead of England — all of them pursuing 
a policy that widens the distance between the consumer and 
the producer, and all finding its effects in decay of agricul- 
ture, in exhaustion of the soil, in decline of human intellect, 
in sluggishness of societary movement, in centralization of 
power, and in growing subjection of those who labor to j)ro- 
duce to the direction of those who perform the works of 



462 CHAPTER XXXTX. § 6. 

trade and transportation. In the first of these, the over- 
population theory finds less and less support with each suc- 
ceeding day. In the last, we find "population always press- 
ing upon subsistence," and I'equiring the aid of famine and 
pestilence for maintenance of equilibrium, the doctrine of 
Mr. Malthus being merely descriptive of the state of things 
that has arisen in every country of the world that has been 
subjected to that British policy so warmly denounced by 
Adam Smith, which has for its object the centralization on a 
single spot of earth of all the machinery of conversion for 
the world. 

All the phenomena of American history tend to prove, 
that the more the people are limited to the labors of the field 
and thus subjected to that system, the less food they have 
to spare, and the lower are the prices ; whereas, the more 
they are protected in the effort at diversifying their employ- 
ments, the larger is the return to the work of cultivation, and 
the greater is the tendency towards a rise of prices. In the 
one case we see them gradually, but certainly, receding 
towards the position occupied by England a century since, 
and in the other, as regularly advancing towards that now 
occupied by Germany and France. 

§ 6. Coming now to England, we find a country whose 
people are becoming, with each succeeding year, more de- 
pendent upon distant lands for supplies of rude products, 
while gradually exhausting all of those from which supplies 
have thus far been derived. Ireland can now do little more 
than feed herself. Portugal and Turkey are almost blotted 
from the list of nations. India produces less and less with 
each succeeding year. Jamaica and Demarara have wholly 
lost the importance they once possessed. The work of 
destruction is proceeding rapidly in Brazil. Virginia and 
Carolina decline from year to year. Wheat and tobacco, as 
objects of cultivation, are steadily leaving the Atlantic States. 
The cotton-growing region of America, of half a century 
since, is now exhausted, while that of a later period is rapidly 
following in its train and furnishing proof that the close of 
the present century must witness the near exhaustion of the 
field of cotton cultivation. 

The policy being thus exhaustive, its effects upon the 
people to whom the world is debtor for it exhibit themselves 
in a perpetual effort fraudulently to increase the apparent 
nuantities even at the cost of health and life, almost every 



OF FOOD AND POPULATION. 403 

thing that is eaten being more or less adulterated. Vinegar 
is water and sulphuric acid. Tea is a compound of gypsum 
and Prussian blue. Pepper is debased with linseed cakes 
Sausages are made of meat that is diseased, while red lead 
forms the chief ingredient of curry powder, the miller and 
tiie baker, meanwhile, adulterating the bread. Verdigris 
poisons the pickles and preserves. Vermillion colors the 
cheese Little, therefore, as the laborer is enabled to pur- 
chase of these commodities, that little is rendered less, and 
often destructive, by the intermixture of substances incapable 
of affording nourishment, great as is their power for produc- 
ing disease, to be followed by death. 

Why, now, is it that such things are needed ? Why is it, 
that with a world as j'et almost unoccupied, men should suf- 
fer, even where they do not perish, for want of food, clothing, 
and fuel? Why are not more houses built? Why is not 
more fuel mined ? Why is not more food produced ? The 
answer to these questions is found in the simple propositions, 
that production increases with that approximation of the 
prices of rude products and finished commodities which 
always follow^s the near approach of the consumer to the 
producer; that it diminishes with their recession from each 
other; and that the latter is the tendency in all the countries 
which follow in the lead of England, embracing, as they do, 
nearly all, except the few in northern and central Europe 
to which we have referred. In all these latter the supply 
of food goes in advance of the demands of a growing popu- 
lation. In the others we find the phenomena required for 
maintaining the Malthusian doctrine of over-population, the 
tendency in all of them being in the direction of centraliza- 
tion, slavery, and death. 

§ T. The simple and beautiful laws by the action of which 
the supply of food and other raw materials is adjusted to 
meet the wants and gratify the tastes of an increasing popu- 
lation, would seem now to be contained in the following 
propositions : — 

That in the infancy of society men, being few in number, 
poor and weak, are little capable of making demands upon 
nature, who, therefore, gives them small and uncertain sup- 
plies of food : 

That ds numbers grow they are enabled to combine to- 
gether, thus obtaining a large increase of force : 

That the more perfect the facility of association the greater 



404 CHAPTER XXXIX. § 1. 

is their power to make demands upon nature's treasury, and 
the greater the quantity of food and other raw materials ob- 
tained in return to any given quantity of labor : 

That the larger tlie supplies yielded by the earth the 
greater becomes the ability to utilize the various portions of 
Ihe commodities obtained, the power of accumulation thus 
increasing with constantly accelerating force, and facilitating 
the construction of new and improved machinery by aid of 
which further to increase the command over nature's ser- 
vices : 

That the more perfect the machinery the less is the need 
for the exertion of muscular force, the smaller is the waste 
of human power, and the less the quantity of food required 
' to replace the waste : 

That the less the quantity needed the greater is the ten- 
dency towards substitution of the products of the vegetable 
and mineral kingdom for those of the animal one, the power 
to obtain supplies thus growing as the need declines : 

That the greater the tendency towards such substitution 
the greater is that which leads to creation of local centres, 
and the larger is the proportion of the force obtained that 
may be given to further development of the latent treasures 
of the earth ; the more rapid is the increase in the power of 
combination ; and the greater is the tendency towards the 
production of the real man, capable of becoming absolute 
master over nature, and over himself: 

That the greater the tendency towards the development 
of the earth's latent powers, the greater is the competition 
for the purchase of labor, the greater is the value of man, 
the more equitable the distribution of labor's products, 
and the greater the tendency towards development of the 
feeling of hope in the future, and of responsibility for the 
exercise of power obtained by means of action in the past : 

That the higher the feeling of hope the greater is the 
tendency towards seeking matrimony as affording the means 
of indulging the kindly feelings towards wife and children, 
and the love of home ; and the less the tendency towards 
seeking it as affording the means of mere animal indulgence : 

That nature here co-operates with man, vital force tending 
more and more in the direction of further strengthening the 
reasoning powers, and less in that of procreation : 

That, consequently, every stage of progress towards real 
civilization is attended with increase in the power to demand 
supplies of food, while diminishing the proportion borne by 



OF FOOD AND POPULATION. 465 

the demand for food to tlie mouths that are to be fed ; and 
slowly but certainly diminishing the tendency towards in- 
crease in the number of mouths themselves ; the ultimate 
effect exhibiting itself in large increase in the proportion 
borne by food to population. 

Such are the various forces to whose combined operation 
we are required to look for proper adjustment of the supply 
of food and other raw materials to the demand for them, 
those forces operating within and without the human system, 
and tending always to establish among its several functions 
an orderly balance, while displaying their power in bringing 
up subsistence to a level with a demand that is itself con- 
stantl}^ diminishing in the ratio borne by it to the numbers 
requiring to be supplied. The sciences and the arts subser- 
vient to the production of raw materials must grow with 
even pace as the morality and intelligence of the race become 
more and more developed. The forces which war upon 
human life, and those to which that life must look for main- 
tenance, tend towards an equal balance, and the preponder- 
ance of the one or the other must rest with man himself, the 
over-ruling law of the process tending towards an exact 
equilibrium. In him, and him alone, the exercise of the pro- 
creative power was placed under the guidance of intellect, 
that intellect having been given to him that he might be 
enabled to place himself in the control and direction of all 
the wonderful forces of nature, his own included. 

Even in the discord of accidental disproportion the harmony 
of means adapted to the production of desired ends may 
everywhere be seen, and when this providential order shall 
finally be obtained by full development of the various powers 
of the earth, all apparent disproportion must disappear, the 
law then standing vindicated against all attempts at miscon- 
struction. Error and abuse diminishing in their proportions, 
the harmony and beauty of eternal truth must become more 
clearly visible, and the ways of Providence be justified 
to man. 



466 CHAPTER XL. § 1. 



CHAPTER XL. 

OF COLONIZATION. 

I I. Early colonization. Nature goes on adding perfection to perfection, from th« 
poles to the tropics. Richer soils of the world as yet unoccupied, nature iDeing tlioie 
all-jiawerful. AVitti the growth of wealth and population man is enabled t.i turn 
against her such of her forces as he has mastered — jiassiiig steadily from triumph to. 
triumph and subjugating more fertile soils. 

I 2. Manufictures always precede, and never follow, tlie creation of a real agriculture. 
The country th it exports its soil in the fjrm of rude products, must end in the o.vport 

. of men. Trading centralization tends to annihilati(ju of local centres, exhaustion of the 
soil, and destruction of the value of land and man. Errors of Ricardo-Malthusian 
teachers. Declining power of association throughout the American Unicm. 

§ 3. Error iu one community tends to the production of error in all. British warf ire on 
the manufactures of other nations tends to the production of slavery abroad and at 
home. 

I 4. Tendency towards over-population in the direct ratio of the separation of the prices 
of raw materials and finislied commodities. Countries which follow in the lead of 
England are those which furnish the facts required for demonstrating the truth of 
Malthusian doctrines. 

§ 1. Look to the great Asiatic plateau from what quarter 
we may, we see vast bodies of men passing from it, north, 
south, east, and west, towards the lower and richer lands of 
the world, the soils first occupied having been those pos- 
sessed in the least degree of the food-producing properties. 
From that point it is that the European races have passed to 
occupy the lands created for their use. At every stage of 
progress we see them stopping in their course and giving 
themselves to the cultivation of the higher and poorer soils 
— the dry Arcadia and the rocky Attica — the Etrurian and 
Saranite hills — the Alpine slopes — the sterile Brittany — the 
Scottish highlands — the Scandinavian mountain-sides — or 
the rock-bound Cornwall. With the growth of wealth and 
population, however, we find them everywhere spreading 
themselves over the lower slopes, and finally descending into 
the valleys, the facilities for combination increasing with 
every year ; the latent powers of the earth becoming more 
developed ; commodities steadily declining, and man as 
steadily rising, in value ; with corresponding development 
of the various individualities of the persons of whom the 
society is composed. 

" Nature," as we are told, and as we have reason to know, 
" goes on, adding perfection to perfection, from the poles to 
the tropics, except in man." So however, does she, as she 



OF COLONIZATION. 467 

nasses downwards from the snowy peaks of the Himalaya 
to the richer soils by which they are surrounded, wlietlier 
.her route be towards Siberian plains, or Gangetic valleys — 
towards Chinese swiimps, or ^gean shores — the world at 
large being little more than a repetition, on a grander 
scale, of what is seen in each of its divisions, great and 
small. 

The whole was given for man's use — to be by him subdued ; 
and yet how small is the proportion he has, as yet, subjected 
to his use ! Look almost where we may, the richer soils remain 
unoccupied — Switzerland abounding in population while the 
rich lands of the lower Danube are lying waste — men gather- 
ing together on the slopes of the Andes while the rich soils 
of the Orinoco and the Amazon remain in a state of nature — 
France and Germany, Italy and Ireland, presenting on a 
smaller scale a state of things precisely similar. Seeing these 
facts, we are led necessarily to the belief that man has made 
but little progress in the execution of the divine command ; 
and yet, turn in wliat direction we may, we are met by the 
assertion that all the poverty and wretchedness of mankind 
is due to that one great error in the divine laws in virtue of 
which population tends to increase more rapidly than the- 
food and other raw materials required for the satisfaction of 
his wants and the maintenance of his powers. 

"America," says a distinguished writer of our day, "lies 
glutted with its vegetable wealth, un worked, solitary. Its 
immense forests, its savannas, every year cover its soil with 
their remains, whicli, accumulated during the long years of 
the world, form that deep bed of vegetable mould, that pre- 
cious soil, awaiting only the hand of man to work out all 
the M'ealth of its inexhaustible fertility." Looking to the 
tropics everywhere, we see so rank a luxuriance of growth 
that the works of man are scarcely abandoned before they 
commence to disappear under trees and foliage. A space of 
lUO square metres, containing 100 banana plants, gives accord- 
ing to Humboldt more than 2000 kilogrammes of nourishing 
substance — the quantity t)f nutritive matter obtained being 
as L33 to 1, when compared with land employed in raising 
wheat, and as 44 to 1, wlien compared with potatoes. In 
Ecuador, this wonderful vegetation never ceases, both the 
plough and the sickle being required at every ocason of the 
year. So is it in Venezuela and in the Peruvian valleys, 
barley, rice, and sugar, growing in the highest perfection, 
and the climate permitting both planting and reaping through- 



IP. 8 CHAPTER XL. § 1. 

out the YPar. Tlie valley of the Orinoco, alone, has boon 
Btated to be capable of furnishing subsistence for the whole 
human race. Of bread-fruit trees but three are required for 
furnishing abundant food for a full-grown man. Rice yields 
an hundred fold, and maize no less than three hundred 
fold. 

Nevertheless, these rich lands, being almost entirely un- 
occupied, are scarcely at all available for human purposes. 
Why ? Because nature is there all-powerful, it being there 
we find the greatest amount of heat, motion, and force. 
Are they forever to remain so useless ? In answer, it may 
be said, that the obstacles to their occupation are little greater 
than, but two centuries since, stood in the way of the reclama- 
tion of the now rich meadows of Lancashire ; or those which, 
even now, are presented to the Western emigrant, when seek- 
ing to reduce to cultivation the richest prairie lands. In all 
these cases the early man is weak for attack, nature being 
strongforresistance. Prom year to yearhe becomes more fitted 
for combination with his neighbor man, with constant growth 
in his powers, and constant decline in her's — each and every 
step in his progress, from the day on which he subjugates 
the horse to that on which he tames the electric force, en- 
abling him more thoroughly to turn against nature such of hei 
own great powers as he has qualified himself to master. He 
is constantly battering at her gates and overthrowing her 
walls ; she, on her part, finding them crumbling to atoms 
about her ears, and with a rapidity that increases with each 
successive hour. 

With every step in this direction there is a diminution in 
the quantity of muscular force required for the labors of the 
field, the mind gradually superseding the unassisted arm that 
had been at first employed. With each there is an increase 
of power to cultivate the richer soils, whether of the tropical 
or the temperate regions of the earth. Where is this to 
stop ? Will it stop ? Can it be that the richest portion of 
the earth is to remain forever in its present condition of utter 
uselessness ? That it can be so may well be doubted by 
those who believe that nothing has been made in vain ; and 
who find in the constantly-increasing utilization of the mate- 
rials of which the earth is composed, evidence that such is 
certainly the case.* 

* "Tropical nature cannot be conquered, and subdued, save by 
civilized men, armed with all the might of discipline, intellige}ice, 
and of skilful industry. It is, then, from the northern continents 



OF COLONIZATION. 409 

It is not, however, to the richer soils alone wo are to look 
for extension of the fields of human operations, all experience 
proving the existence of a tendency towards the gradual 
equalization of the various soils of which the earth has been 
composed In France, as has been shown, it exhibits itself 
in a most striking manner; and France is but the world at 
lararo in miniature. The railroad, by facilitating access to 
them, has already brought into activity large bodies of land 
that had before remained unused ; and it is destined, ulti- 
mately, to do for whole provinces, states, kingdoms, and the 
world at large, what it has already done for portions of the 
soils of England, France, and the United States. Looking 
at all these facts, it is safe to say, that the power of the 
earth to afford subsistence to man is practically unlimited. 

§ 2. How are all these lands to be ultimately rendered 
available for human purposes ? The answer to this question 
is found in the fact, that maniifaclures always precede and 
f)ever follow the creation of a real agriculture. In the 
absence of the former, all attempts at cultivation are limited 
to the work of tearing out and exporting the soil in the form 
of rude products, the country that pursues this policy always 
ending in the exportation or annihilation of men. Give to 
Turkey the power to develop her vast natural resources, en- 
able her to make her own cloth, and a real agriculture will 
then arise, that will render the plains of Thrace and Mace- 
donia once more productive. Place in Brazil the machinery 
required for utilizing her various ores, for making her own 
iron, and for converting her raw materials into clothing, and 
she, too, will soon exhibit to the world a state of things 
widely different from that which now exists. Let Carolina 
have the means of converting her cotton into cloth, and her 
millions of acres of rich meadow land will soon be made 
productive. Enable Illinois to mine her coal, her lead, and 
her iron ore, and her people will cease to see the product of 
the soil diminishing from year to year as now it does. Local 
centres of attraction being thus created in all those countries, 
each will then become a competitor with France and England, 
Belgium and Germany, for the purchase of labor, skill, and 

that those of the south await their deliverance ; it is by the help 
of the civilized man of the temperate continents, that it sliall be 
vouchsafed to the man of the tropical lands to enter into the 
movement of universal progress and improvement, wherein man 
kind should share." — Guyot : Earth and Man, p. 830. 
40 



4T0 CHAPTER XL. § 2. 

talent of all desci'iptions ; and the greater that competition 
the greater will be the tendency towards absorbing the 
laborers of all those countries, the centrifugal and centrii)e- 
tal forces then tending daily towards a more perfect balance, 
with growing power, on the part of all, to make their own 
election whether to go abroad or remain at home. AVhatever 
tends to invite emigration, is a measure that looks towards 
freedom. Whatever it may be that tends to compel emigra- 
tion, its tendency is towards slavery. 

Early Grecian colonization, as the reader has already seen, 
was a result of a counter-attraction, and therefore altogether 
voluntary. Later, when trade and war had become the sole 
occupation of the people, and when poverty and wretched- 
ness were gradually extending themselves throughout the 
various classes of the state, colonization wholly lost its 
voluntary character, the form it then assumed being that of 
expeditions fitted out at the public cost for supplying the 
places, and taking possession of the lands, of earlier colonists 
who were now in course of being ruined by means of measures 
adopted forthe maintenance of the ever-grasping central power. 

Under the first of these, local centres, teeming with activity 
and life, were everywhere created. Directly the reverse of 
this has been, and is, the tendency of that modern coloniza- 
tion which is based upon the idea of cheapening labor, land, 
and raw materials of every kind, thus extending slavery 
throughout the earth. Under it, all local centres tend to 
disappear*^ the land declines in its power; production 
diminishes; the landholder acquires power; competition for 
the purchase of labor diminishes, while competition for its 
sale increases from year to year ; and man becomes less free 
. — with constantly-growing necessity for fleeing to other 
lands, if he wouhl not perish of famine at home. Under it, 
Irishmen have been forced to fly their country, seeking in 
England and America the food and clothing that could no 
longer be obtained in their native land. Under it, the world 
has witnessed the annihilation of the local centres of India, 
attended with an amount of ruin to which there can be found 
"no parallel in the annals of commerce." Under it, Asiatic 
industry, "from Smyrna to Canton, from Madras to Samar- 
cand," has received, as we are told by Mr. McCulloch, a shock 
from which it is unlikely ever to recover, the result being 
seen in the large export of Hindoo laborers to the Mauritius, 
and Chinese coolies to Cuba and Demaralra. Under it, little 
short of two millions of blacks were carried to the British 



OF COLONIZATION. 471 

West Indies, two-tliirds of whom had disappeared bei'ore 
the pa?sao:e of the aet of Emancipation, leaving behind them 
no descendants. Under it, the people of Turkey and Portugal 
u'radually decline in numbers, local centres disappearing, 
land declining in value, and the power of production 
diminishing from year to year. Under it, Canada has been 
deprived of all power to diversify her industry, and now 
j)resents to view vast bodies of people who are wholly un- 
able to sell their labor — her power of attraction, as a cor- 
rector of the evils attendant upon transatlantic centralization, 
having, therefore, wholly ceased. Under it, China has been 
inundated with opium to such an extent as to have paved 
the way for a repetition, in that country, of the exhaustive 
process that has been pursued in India. Under it, the people 
of these United States have already exhausted many of the 
older States, and are now repeating the operation throughout 
the valley of the Mississippi. Look where we may, among 
the countries subjected to the British system, we find the 
results the same, the necessit}^ for colonization growing 
steadily, with constant decline in the productiveness of the 
soil, and in the value of land and man. 

By all the advocates of the Ricardc-Malthusian doctrine the 
past prosperity of the American people has been uniformly 
attributed to the abundance of fertile soils at their command. 
They have been supposed to be receiving wages for their 
services, phis the amount that elsewhere would be absorbed 
as rent. It being, however, the poorer soils that are first 
appropriated, and the richer ones remaining always unpro- 
ductive until wealth and population have greatly grown, it 
is obvious that they have been wasting upon the former a 
vast amount of labor, while subjecting themselves to a tax 
of transportation greater than would have been required for 
the support of armies ten times larger than those of 
assembled Europe. Rich meadow lands in the Atlantic 
States have remained in a state of nature while millions of 
people have sought the West, there to obtain from an acre 
of land some 30 or 40 liushels of corn, three-fourths of wliicli 
have been absorbed on their route to the distant markets. 
Acres of turnips or potatoes yield 12 or 14 tons, whereas the 
average yield of all the wheat land of the young Ohio is not 
as many bushels. The refuse of an acre of one would 
fertilize the poorer acres round it; whereas, the refuse of 
the other, sent to the distant market, finds its place on the 
soil of England. Bring the consumer to the side of the pro- 



472 CHAPTER XL. § 2. 

ducer, and the latter may then raise those commodities of 
which the earth yields by tons. Separate the two, and the 
farmer finds himself limited to those of which the quantity 
is counted by bushels or by pounds. 

Look where we may, we see that where local centres are 
created, where mines are opened, furnaces built, or mills es- 
tablished, land grows in price. Why it does so is, that where 
consumers and producers are brought together it becomes 
freed from the exhausting tax of transportation, and its owner 
is enabled to devote his time, mind, and means, towards com- 
])e]ling the rich soils to give forth the vast supplies of food 
of which they are capable, paying them back the refuse and 
thus maintaining his credit with the great bank upon which 
his drafts have become so large. To render meadoAV land 
worth the cost of clearing, the farmer must have a market in 
his neighborhood for his milk and cream, his veal and beef. 
To enable him to vary his culture, and thus improve his 
land, he must have facilities for the sale of potatoes and 
cabbages, as well as for that of rye and wheat. In the ab- 
sence of that power — his rich lands not being worth the 
cost of clearing — he flies to the West, there to appropriate 
more land, to be in its turn exhausted. As a consequence of 
this it is, that a few millions of people, are now scattered over 
so many millions of square miles, and are foi'ced to devot6 
so large a portion of their time and mind to the effort to 
obtain roads by aid of which they may economize a portion 
of that tax of transportation by the payment of which they 
are now impoverished. 

The tendency of the American system is, as a rule, towards 
abstracting from nature's great bank^ali that it can be made 
to pay, giving it nothing in return — that tendency being a 
direct consequence of its failure to protect the people against 
that British system which has for its object the cheapening 
of land, labor, and the rude products of the earth. Such 
prosperity as has been attained by the people of the United 
States has not been due to the abundance of the land over 
which they have been dispersed. In all other countries, men 
have been most poor when land was most abundant, and 
when the inhabitants had, apparently, most the choice 
between the poorer and the richer soils. Fertile land, un- 
cultivated, abounded in the days of the Edwards, yet food 
was then obtained with far more difficulty than now. It ia 
more abundant in Russia, Ceylon, Buenos Ayres, and Bi'azil, 
than in these United States, and yet they make but I'tU i 



OP COLONIZATION. 473 

progress. It was more abundant in France, in the days of 
Louis XV., than it now is, and yet men perished then "like 
flies in the autumn ;" whereas, they are now well fed and 
clothed. 

Prosperity comes with diversit}' in the demand for human 
effort — with development of human powers — with growing 
power of association — with division of the land — with com- 
petition for the purchase of labor — every step in that direc- 
tion being accompanied by an increase in the power of the 
laborer to determine for himself whether to go abroad, or 
slay at home. Tliroughuut tlie Union, emigration now 
(1857) increa.se.s, the i)Ovver of association tending steadily 
to decrease. Hence it is, that the history of the past few 
years exhibits so rapid a growth of belief in the divine origin 
of human slavery, and of demoralization in the people and 
the State. 

§ .S. There being in all the real and permanent interests of 
mankind a perfect harmony, error in one community tends 
necessarily to the production of error everywhere. The 
annihilation of the power of association throughout Ireland 
tended to compel the emigration of Irishmen to England, 
there, of course, cheapening labor to the great disadvantage 
of the English laborer. 

The long-continued "warfare" uppn the industry of other 
nations, described in a former chapter, carried on under the 
mistaken idea that the prosperity of the British people was 
to be promoted by "stifling in the cradle" all the manufac- 
tures of the world outside of Britain, was attencted necessarily 
\)y the destruction of the smaller manufacturers of Britain 
herself, the result being seen in the facts, that there is now no 
place for the little capitalist in any department of manufacture, 
and that the proportion of society engaged in trade — obtain- 
ing a living by "snatching the bread out of other people's 
mouths" — is a constantly-increasing one. The necessity for 
emigration, among this class, grows, therefore, daily, the 
higher and lower classes becoming divided by a constantly- 
deepening and widening gulf. 

Consolidation of the land driving the laborer to the cities, 
and consolidation of capital diminishing the competition for 
the purchase of labor in towns and cities, the power of the 
laborer to determine for whom he would work, and at what 
he would work, necessarily declined — the effect being seen in 
a growing increase in that competition for the sale of labor, 



474 CHAPTER XL. § 3. 

now regarded as so indispensable to the progress of British 
manufactures, but which is only another name for slavery. 

The wider the gulf which divides the great proprietory 
from the laborer on the land the greater is the space to hv 
occupied by middlemen, and the smaller is the proportion 
retained by those who own the land, or those who do tlw 
work. The larger the space between the great manufacturer 
and the regiment of hands employed in his mill, the morn 
numerous will be the intermediate agents, each and all anxious 
to obtain the largest prices for having the work done, while 
paying the smallest to those who do it.* 

The system tends, everywhere, to the elevation of trade, 
at the expense of agriculture — looking, as it did in the days 
of Adam Smith, and as it now does, to the cheapening of all 
the raw materials of manufacture. Such being the facts, we 
need scarcely feel surprised at the expression, by one of the 
most enlightened of modern British writers, of the opinion, 
that it is neither an imaginary nor a distant evil, that the 
middle classes should " sink into nothing" — England then 
becoming "a Genoa in large, with one small class living in 
almost royal splendor and luxury, and the great mass of the 
community in rags and hunger. "f 

Under such circumstances it is, that the last few years have 
witnessed an amount of involuntary emigration from the 
British islands, that is wholly without a parallel, except in 
the history of the African slave-trade. Australia has been 
peopled by convicts. Emigration commissioners have been 
employed in exporting the women who were required for 
pairing with the men who had been shipped abroad. Scotch- 
men have been expelled from their" little holdings, and sent to 
Canada. Cottages, by tens of thousands, have been levelled 

* "The feudal] zation going on in our manufacturing social econ- 
omy is very conspicuous in some of the great cotton factories. 
The master-manufacturer in some districts, who employs eight hun- 
dred or a thousand hands, deals in reality with only fifty or sixty 
sub-vassals, or operative cotton-spinners, as they are technically 
called, who undertake the working of so many looms, or spinning- 
jennies. They hire and pay the men, women, and children, who 
are the real operatives, grinding their wages down to the lowest 
rate, and getting the highest they can out of the master-manufac- 
turer. A strike is often the operation of these middle-men, and 
productive of little benefit to, and even against the will of, the actua' 
workmen. They are, in the little imperium of the factory, the equiv 
alent to the feudal barons." — Laikg : Notes of a Traveller, p. 177. 

+ Ibid, p. 188. 



OF COLONIZATION. 



475 



in Ireland, witli a view to compel the exportation of the 
wretched people who had occupied them. Under such cir- 
cumstances it was, that 2,144,802 persons left the United 
Kingdom in the short period of seven years, ending in 1854. 
Of these, it is probable that more than 100,000 perished on the 
road to their new homes, victims to the system which finds 
in buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest 
one the chief incentive to action, and sees in man a mere 
instrument to be used by trade. 

§ 4. Man seeks to obtain power over nature. That he may 
obtain it, he must learn to utilize the various faculties by 
which he is distinguished from the lower animals. The more 
they are utilized, the more perfect becomes his power of com- 
bination with his fellow-man ; the more are the various utili- 
ties of the earth developed ; the more rapid is the societary 
circulation ; the greater is the power of accumulation ; the 
more equitable becomes the distribution ; the greater is the 
competition for his services among the near and the dis- 
tant soils, and the greater his power to make his election be- 
tween them ; the closer becomes the approximation of the 
prices of raw materials and finished commodities; and the 
greater is the tendency towards increase in the powers of land 
and man, and strength in the State, as here is shown : — 



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In that direction — passing from left to right — travel now 
all the countries that follow in the lead of Colbert and of 
France, and France herself. So, too, have sometimes trav- 
elled these United States, with rapid appreciation in the value 



476 CHAPTER XL. § 4. 

of both land and man. As a rule, however, they have walked 
with Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, Jamaica, and other countries, 
under the lead of England — moving thus from right to left — 
and like them, have then been troubled with the disease of 
over-population. 

The British policy is selfish and repulsive, its essential 
object being the separation of the consumers and the pro- 
ducers of the world. In that direction lie poverty and 
slavei'y ; and therefore is it, that while England seeks to 
expel her people, no country of the world that follows in her 
lead, even when abounding in land that is unoccupied, offers 
any inducement to settlement except to those who are 
driven to it by poverty, if not even by actual want.* 

The harmony of the world is maintained, as we have seen, 
by means of the perfect balance of the opposing attractive 
and counter-attractive forces. The more perfect the balance 
the more rapid is the societary motion, and the greater the 
tendency towards augmentation in the quantity of food ob- 
tained in return to any given quantity of labor. Throughout 
the realm now chiefly, even where not wholly, controlled by 
England, repulsion is universal; as a consequence of which 
the societary motion tends towards diminution, with growing 
tendency in all its parts to furnish, and on a larger scale, the 
facts required for establishing the doctrines of the Ricardo- 
Malthusian school. 

* " One can scarcely open a newspaper from any part of the world 
just now in wliicli we do not light upon a paragraph about the 
transfer of laborers from one country to another. The movement 
is so universal, in regard to intertropical colonies, and countries in 
near relation with them, that the question which naturally occurs 
to all simple-minded people is, why do not all these laborers stay 
where they are, and work at home ? What is the use of their turn- 
ing one another out, and running after or running away from each 
other, when each country has work to do, and people living there 
to do it? These simple questions appear to us perfectly rational ; 
and no answer, we are confident, can be made which will satisfy 
any reasonable and honest mind. This wasteful and laborious 
shifting of the labor-supply — this costly effort to counteract the 
great natural laws of society — is a consequence of the prior viola- 
tion of Nature's laws, which we call slavery, and which slaveliolders 
describe as the beneficiary servitude of an inferior to a superior 
race." — London Spectator 



OF THE MALTIIUSIAN THEORY. 477 



CHAPTER XLI. 

OV THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 

{ 1. Constant tendency, according to Mr. Maltlins. iu all animated life, to increase beyond 
the nouiishment prepared for it. Facts, however, prove that supply is, everywliere. a 
consequence of demand, tlie quantity of food prepared fir beings of every kind being 
pr.ictically unlimited. Laws of natui'e vindicate tlie ways of God to man. 

I 2. Misery and vice attributed to deficiency in the powers of the earth to furnish fond to 
increasing numbers. Facts of history prove the diUiculty to lie with man himself, aurl 
not in errors of the Creator. 

^ 3. Mr. Malthus gives facts, and calls them science. Science demands principles, asking. 
Why it is that such things are? Failure of Mr. Maltbns to establish "the one great 
cause" of the various f icts c)bserved. His I'rincipli: nf I'opuUxtiun a mere form of words, 
indicating the existence of an altogether imaginary fact. 

J -t. Kesponsibility grows with the growth of the gifts of God to man. Poor laborer tho 
slave of circumstances, yet held responsible for l^s acts. Tendency of the Maltliusian 
doctrine to shift responsibility from the rich and strong to the poor, the weak, aud the 
uninstructbd. 

§1. The "one great cause" tliat has " liitberto impeded 
the progress of mankind towards happiness," that one to 
which are due the " vice and misery" so generally prevailing, 
as well as the existing inequality in the "distribution of the 
bounties of nature," is, as Mr. Malthus has told us, "the 
constant tendency in all animated life to increase bej^ond the 
nourisliment prepared for it."* Before inquiring into the truth 
or falsehood of the idea thus propounded, it may be well to 
determine for ourselves the meaning of the word "prepared" 
as here submitted for our consideration. Were a parent to 
place at the command of his family the whole contents of a 
well-filled granary, would he, or would he not, have "pre- 
pared" for them a supply of food ? Having given tbem, in the 
greatest superabundance, all the materials of fuel and cloth- 
ing, and having endowed them with all the knijwledge required 
for their conversion, could he be justly charged with not hav- 
ing " prepared" for tbem what was needed fur the preservation 
of vital heat; that, too, for no other reason, than that he had 
refused to grind the corn, bake the bread, cut and transport 
the wood, weave the cotton, and then form the clotb into 
shirts and pantaloons? Having placed it in their own power 
to feed and clothe themselves if they would, could he bo 
blamed if they then suffered from cold or hunger ? "Would 
the fault lie with him or them ? Assuredly, not with him. 

Looking now to the great family of mankind, we may in- 

* Principles of Population, Book 1, chap. i. 



478 CIIAI'TER XLI. § I. 

quiro what is vbe real meaning of the word thus used, as con- 
nected with the provision made by the great Father of all 
for supplying its members with the food and clothing they 
require. Are we to conceive it as having reference only to 
the limited number of already organized forms, vegetable and 
animal, thinly scattered over the earth's surface, or as refer- 
ring, far more properly, to the great stock of raw material 
capable of being, made to assume those forms deposited in the 
great treasury of nature, and waiting only man's call to do 
him service ? Have not the coal and ore now lying in the 
earth, and the corn and wool whose elements so much abound, 
been as much " prepared" for his uses, as the grass that grows 
upon the prairie ? Has not the electricity everywhere exist- 
ing been as much " prepared" for him, as that trivial quantity 
which manifests itself in the lightning's flash ? Have not all 
the vast powers of earth* and atmosphere, whensoever and 
wheresoever found, been " prepared" for his service, and has 
he not, himself, been endowed with all the faculties required 
for enabling him to compel them to minister to his wants, and 
aid in gratifying his desires ? That such is the case is 
bej'ond all question. If, then, he perishes in the midst of 
this vast treasury, does the fault lie with his Creator, or with 
himself? 

That men do so perish, and that, too, not unfrequently, we 
know. Why do they this ? Because, as we are here told, 
of the insufficiency of the stock of nourishment "prepared" 
for their use. What evidence, however, have we of this ? 
Have they ever found the treasury to have been exhausted ? 
Have they not, on the contrary, found it full whenever they 
have complied with the conditions upon which, alone, the 
earth makes loans, that condition being the punctual return 
of the raw material after having used it ? That this last has 
been the case is proved by the history of every advancing 
nation of the world, the supplies of food having increased 
more rapidly than the numbers of those among whom they 
were to be divided, in every country in which men have been 
enabled so to combine their efforts as to bring into activity 
the various powers with which they had been endowed 

We are told, however, that this is an universal law, the 
tendency to increase beyond the subsistence t-hat has been 
prepared being equally great throughout every portion of the 
animal world. On the other hand we learn that a single 
farm is capable of feeding more cattle than could find support 
in a whole country of forests. This being so, it is clearly 



OF THE MALTUVSIA.N THEORY. 479 

obvious that more " nourisliiiu'tit'' is, in tlie one case, required 
to be drawn from a sin<jle acre, tlian in tlie otiier is furnislied 
bv a iuindred acres. Millions of buffaloes, as we know, could 
find support on prairies that now feed tens of thousands only, 
had man the knowledge required for enabling him to profit 
of the ))Owers of the soil over which he roams. That he may 
anywhere obtain it he must learn to combine with his fellow- 
jiicn, and divide employments with them, that being the con- 
dition upon which alone power can be obtained. Failing in 
this, the people of the prairies, as we may well suppose, unite 
with Ricardo-Malthusian writers in denouncing the " nig- 
garilliness of nature," when the real cause of ditBculty is to 
be found in their own deficiencies. 

Again, it is a well-known fact, that rapid as has been the 
growth of American population, that of the supply of oysters 
has been far more so, the consumption, per head, being 
greater, with thirty millions- to feed, than when there was but 
a single million. Why is this ? There has been no increase 
in the quantity of food "prepared" for such animals, the con- 
stituents of the water in which they grow being the same 
with those of the waters of the days of William Penn. Wh}', 
then, has there been so great a tendency towards this particu- 
lar change in the form of matter — towards having inorganic 
matter take that certain organic form ? Because, large as 
had been the store of force " prepared," it was compelled to 
remain latent and undeveloped, until man could qualify him- 
self for its proper guidance and direction. 

So far, then, from finding in the facts presented to us any 
foundation for the assertion of Mr. Malthus, even in regard 
to the lower animals, we meet, everywhere, with evidence 
that the quantity of food " prepared'' for them, and for man 
himself, is practically unlimited, and that it rests with him 
alone to determine to what extent the elements shall take the 
form desired, the supply of sustenance tending to increase in 
the ratio of the demand. On the other hand, we are every- 
where presented with the important facts, that just in pro- 
portion as he qualifies himself for drawing on the great bank, 
the absolutely necessary drafts of the individual man tend to 
diminish ; that the growth of power in himself is attended by 
corresponding decrease in the quantit}' of food required for 
repairing the daily waste ; that vegetable food, of which the 
earth yields by tons, tends to take the place of animal food, 
of which it yields by pounds ; he himself assuming, more and 
more, the responsible position for which he was intended, 



480 CHAPTER XLI. § 2. 

and nature co-operating in the work by directing to the 
development of his brain those elements which, otherwise, 
would have been appropriated to the work of generation. 

Study the laws of nature where we may, we find them vin- 
dicating the ways of God to man, each and every step on the 
road towards knowledge bringing us to a more complete per- 
ception of the perfect adaptation of the machinery to the pro- 
duction of the great effect desired — that of fitting the human 
animal for worthily occupying the place for which it from the 
first was destined. 

§ 2. "A thousand millions of men," as we are assured by 
Mr. Malthus, "are just as easily doubled every twenty-five 
years, by the principle of population, as a thousand." Why, 
then, have they not increased ? At the commencement of 
our era there were probably that number of persons on the 
earth, and it is doubtful if there are more at the present 
moment. Had they doubled in each succeeding quarter of 
a century, they would now count by billions of millions. 
Why have they not ? Because in all that time, as we are 
told, population has been pressing upon subsistence, the ten- 
dency of matter to assume the form of highest development 
having been so much greater than that manifested in regard 
to those lower forms in which it becomes " prepared" for 
man's use, as to cause the existence of wide-spread " vice and 
misery," thus producing a necessity for the positive checks 
of "diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine." 
Which, however, in these cases, is the cause, and which the 
consequence ? Are misery and vice the cause of deficiency 
in the supply of food, or is this latter a necessary consequence 
of failure in man to exercise the faculties with which he has 
been endowed ? This is a highly important question, de- 
ficiency in man himself being within the reach of man's 
correction, whereas deficiency in the powers of the great 
machine given for his use is entirely beyond the reach of 
remedy. 

Seeking a reply to it, we are met by the facts, that the 
supply of food, in the last few centuries, has increased in its 
ratio to the popuhition, in England, France, Belgium, Ger- 
many, and all other countries, in which — population and 
wealth having been permitted to increase — man has acquired 
greater power to draw upon nature's treasury ; while dimin- 
ishing in Turkey, Mexico, and other countries, in which, 
population and wealth having declined, his power io con»- 



OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 481 

mand ihe services of nature has steadily diminished. Look 
around us now where we may, we find that where the power 
of association is a growing one, it is accompanied by an in- 
crease in the supply of food, ch)thing, houses, and all other 
commodities and things required for man's support and com- 
fort. Wherever, on the contrary, it is a diminishing one, the 
supply of all these things as steadily decreases — the value of 
man declining, and he himself becoming more and more the 
slave of nature and his fellow-man. Such being the case, the 
cause of present difficulty would seem to be in man himself, 
and not in any defect in that scheme of creation in which he 
had been assigned so great a part. 

§ 3. Admitting, however, for the moment, that the facts 
have been as described by Mr. Malthus — that population has, 
throughout all those countries, been pressing upon subsist- 
ence — we shall still have made but little progress towards 
scientific truth ; science always desiring to know why it is 
that such things are. For thousands of years it had been 
remarked that apples fell to the ground, but it was left to 
Newton to answer the question, why is it that apples fall ? 
Science then asked, as it now asks, ivhi/ is it that food cannot 
keep pace with population ? What is the " one great cause," 
THE ULTIMATE CAUSE, of difficulty ? Is it to be found in man's 
inability to make demands upon the earth, or in the inca- 
pacity of the earth to meet the drafts he makes ? Is it true, 
can it be true, that with the growth of population and of 
wealth, there comes a time when "every increase of produce 
is obtained by a more than proportionate increase in the ap- 
plication of labor to the land," man thus becoming nature's 
slave as he grows himself in power ? If he does so, why is 
it ? Is it possible that man may, by any effort, place 
himself in the position for which he had been intended, that 
of nature's master ? Is there any room for hope, or must he 
live on, knowing that in virtue of a great and over-ruling 
law the time must come when they who own the land will 
hold as slaves all those who need to work it ? To all these 
latter questions, the answer is to be determined by that given 
to the first and greatest of them • What is the one great 
cause of the " vice and misery" now so obviously existing 
throughout the world ? That is the question Mr. Malthus 
has professed to answer. How far he has done so we may 
now inquire. 

Commencing with the American Indians, he tells his read- 
41 



482 CHAPTER XLT. § 3. 

ers that the women are "far from being prolific ;" that their 
unfruitfulness has been attributed by some to a " want of ardor 
in the men;" that this "is not, however, peculiar to his 
race," it having been remarked bj Bruce and Yaillant in re- 
gard to various tribes of Africa. The causes of this are not, 
as he thinks, to be found in "any absolute constitutional 
defect, diminishing as it does nearly in proportion to the de- 
gree in which" the hardships and dangers of savage life are 
diminished or removed. What is, in this case, the cause of 
difficulty ? The one great cause cannot here be seen, yet 
" vice and misery" much abound. Why is it so ? Is it be- 
cause of too great a tendency towards human reproduction, 
or is it an absence of disposition or ability in man to make 
the earth produce ? By the admission of Mr. Malthus him- 
self, it is the latter — " vice and misery" here resulting from 
the operations of the creature, and not from laws instituted 
by the Creator. What then becomes of his Principle of 
Population ? 

Turning now towards South America, we find that "in the 
interior of the province bordering on the Orinoco, several 
hundred miles may be traversed in different directions with- 
out finding a single hut, or observing the footsteps of a single 
creature." This is, nevertheless, one of the richest regions 
of the world — one in which there- is perpetual summer — and 
in which maize yields three hundred fold. Why is it that 
population does not here increase ? — it being, according to 
Mr. M., an undoubted fact that numbers are limited only by 
the difficulty of obtaining food, and that they tend, always 
and everywhere, to outrun subsistence. Where is the one 
great cause of which we are in search, and which he would 
here exhibit ? 

Looking next to Peru, we find that, having been led "by 
a fortunate train of circumstances to improve and extend 
their agriculture," its people "were enabled to increase in 
numbers," in spite of "the apathy of the men, or the destruc- 
tive habits of the women." Nothing is here said of "popu- 
lation pressing on subsistence;" it being quite too obvious 
that the large numbers of people gathered together on the 
poor lands of the western slope of the Andes had been far 
better supplied with food than the scattered savages wlio 
wandered over the fertile soils of the eastern one, a single 
acre of which could furnish more food, in return to the same 
labor, than could be obtained from a dozen in Peru. Thus 
far, therefore, we have made no approach to the determina- 



OF XriE MALTIIUSIAN THEORY. 4S3 

lion of the one <!^rt'at cause of tlie prevalence of " vice and 
misery" among mankind. 

Passing now to the rich islands of the South Pacific, we 
find tribes of people who live on human flesh, and who, being " 
perpetually at war with each other, " naturally wish to in- 
crease the number of their members," with a view to "greater 
power of attack or defence." No customs here prevail 
among the women unfavorable to the progress of population. 
Yet, admirable as is the climate, and fertile as is the soil, 
they are few in number. Food, nevertheless, is so scarce as 
to render it "not improbable that the desire of a good meal 
should give additional force to the desire of revenge, and that 
they should be perpetually destroying each other by violence 
as the only alternative of perishing by hunger." Does the 
difficulty here experienced lie with man, or with the earth ? 
If the former, what becomes of Mr. Malthus's one great 
cause of vice and misery ? 

Infanticide and immorality abounding in Tahiti, Mr. Mal- 
thus was of opinion that when depopulation should have run 
its course, a change of habits " would soon restore the popu- 
lation, which could not long be kept below its natural level 
without the most extreme violence." That level being the 
Bupply of food, and food being here exuberantly abundant, it 
is clear that the " one great cause" cannot, on this occasion, 
be produced. Inequality in the distribution of the proceeds 
of labor being one of those phenomena of society which were 
to be accounted for by the constant pressure of population 
against subsistence, the reader of Mr. Malthus's work can 
scarcely fail to be surprised at finding him here asserting that 
" in all those countries where provisions are obtained with 
great facility," those of course in which the " cne great 
cause" cannot be found, "a most tj'rannical distinction of 
rank prevails," the people being " in a state of comparative 
degradation " 

The peasants, under the Turkish rule, "desert their villages, 
and betake themselves to a pastoral state," hoping thereby 
better "to escape from the plunder of their Turkish masters, 
and Arab neighbors." The "one great cause" of vice and 
misery that Mr. Malthus desired to establish was the inability 
of the earth to answer the demands of man, but here he 
only proves the inability of man to make demands upon the 
earth. 

Quoting from Park, Mr. Malthus describes " the wonder- 
ful fertility of the soil of Africa, and its vast herds of cattle" 



484 CHAPTER XLI. § 3. 

regretting "that a country so abundantly gifted by nature 

should remain in its present savage and neglected state." 
The cause of this is to be found in the fact that "they have 
• not many opportunities of turning to account the surplus 
produce of their labor." Why have they not? Because 
they need more population — enabling them so to diversify 
their employments as to give them the " opportunities" they 
so much require — making a market on the land for all the 
products of their fertile soils. Absence of demand for food, 
however, can scarcely be adduced as proof that population 
tends to increase more rapidly than food. Park having 
attributed the dearths that frequently occurred to want of 
people, Mr. Malthus himself replies that what they really 
need is "security, and its general concomitant, industry" — 
and therein he is right. Population would then increase, 
and dearths would disappear, the great bank being prepared 
to answer all the drafts that can be made upon it. What, 
however, in this case becomes of the "one great cause ?" 

" The principle of increase in Egypt," as we are told, 
" does all that it is possible for it to do," keeping " the popu- 
lation fully up to the level af subsistence." A more natural 
explanation of the phenomena here observed would be, that 
insecurity and oppression keep the supply of food below the 
level of population. Such an one, however, would have no 
tendency to prove the existence of the alleged " great cause," 
the insufficiency of the powers of the earth to meet the de- 
mands of man. 

Elaunted by the idea of an imaginary fact, Mr. Malthus 
pressed into his service a quantity of real ones, all of them 
tending to prove how steadily and generally men had been 
engaged in preventing themselves from obtaining command 
of the food " prepared" for them, but none of them tending 
in any degree whatsoever to prove that the supply had not 
everywhere increased in full proportion to their power to 
make demand. Instead of establishing the existence of 
his "one great cause," he has given us an almost infinite 
variety of causes out of which to select the one to which we 
may be best disposed to attribute the " vice and misery" that 
are everywhere around us. In his anxiety to effect his object 
facts are frequently distorted, the rapid increase of population 
in the Western American States being first treated as a result 
of natural increase and without allowance for immigration, 
and the increase of early German tribes being then assumed 
as having been fully equal to that observed throughout the 



OF THE MALTIIUSIAN THEORY. 485 

United States. Where facts cannot be given, suppositions 
and probabilities are furnished, all of them tending, of course, 
to the establishment of the great facts, that the principle of 
increase in man is greater than in the lower forms of orga- 
nized matter ; that population must, therefore, outrun sub- 
sistence ; and, of course, that the Creator had made a serious 
blunder. 

Occasionally his views are accurate, as when he tells his 
readers that where there are no manufactures raw produce 
will be cheap, and finished commodities dear; that, in 
countries in which the agricultural system entirely predomi- 
nates, "the condition of the people is subject to almost every 
degree of variation ;" that commerce and manufactures are 
necessary to agriculture ; and that the poverty and wretched- 
ness of Africa, and other countries in which fertile soils so 
much abound, are due to that want of power to maintain 
commerce which always results from absence of diversity in 
the demand for human faculties. Rejecting these truths, 
while adopting all his errors, his countrymen have been most 
consistent in the effort to prevent the establishment of manu- 
factures in any countr}- outside of Britain, thereby producing, 
or perpetuating, throughout the world the " vice and misery" 
described by Mr. Malthus, and by him attributed to what he 
called the "Principle of Population ;" that principle being a 
mere form of words, indicative of the existence of a great, but 
altogether imaginary, fact. 

Few books have exercised a greater influence, yet few have 
had less claim to the exercise of any influence whatsoever. 
Few have been so prejudicial to the modes of thought, and 
yet no one can hesitate to believe that its author was prompted 
by a desire of benefiting his fellow-men. 

§ 4. Responsibility grows with tlie grov^'th of the gifts of 
God to man, he who is rich in the development of his powers, 
and, therefore, capable of influencing the societary action, 
being responsible to his fellow-men and to his Creator for the 
full and strict performance of his duties. The poor laborer, 
on the contrary, is the slave of circumstances over which he 
exercises no control, rising, as he so frequently does, un- 
certain where he shall find his daily bread, and sleeping 
Bupperless because of his having found that society did not 
"need his labor," and had, therefore, allowed him no place 
"at the table" provided for all mankind. Again and again 
failing to exchange his services for food, he returns to liis 



486 CHAPTER XLI. § 4. 

wretched home, to encounter there the demands of a starving? 
wife and children. Despairing, he steals a loaf, society then 
holding him to a strict accountability while maintaining the 
existence of great natural laws, in virtue of which a large 
proportion of every population must "regularly die of want." 

That there is much of vice and misery in the world is ati 
undoubted fact. Mr. Malthus says that it is the natural 
result of a divine, and therefore inevitable, law — the result, 
as we see, being that of relieving the governing classes of 
the world from any possible responsibility for the welfare of 
those below them. Both religion and common sense, how- 
ever, teach, that the Being who made this wonderful world, 
in which every part is so perfectly adapted to the production 
of harmony, could have imposed upon man no law tending 
t© the production of discord ; that vice and misery are con- 
sequences of human error, and not of divine laws ; and that 
the men who exercise power, and control the societary move- 
ment, are responsible for the condition of those around them. 
Such is the difference between Social Science, and the 
doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school — the one hold- 
ing the rich and strong Jo a high responsibility, while the 
other shifts the whole of it to the shoulders of those who, 
being poor and weak, are unable to defend themselves. 

The one holds to a belief in the great law of Christianity, 
which teaches that men should do to others as they would 
that others should do unto them ; that where there are old, 
blind, lame, or otherwise helpless persons, it is the duty of 
the strong and the rich to see that they are provided for. 
The other teaches, that " charity, in applying itself to the 
relief of the distressed, does but augment the number of 
the poor;" that population is superabundant, and that there 
is no remedy but that of "starving out the surplus ;" that 
marriage is " a luxury" in which the poor have no right to 
indulge ; that it is " an enjoyment" to which " the poor have 
no right until they have made provision for their expected 
family ;" that " labor is a commodity," and that if poor men 
will marry and have children, and " we stand between the 
error and its consequences," which are poverty, wretchedness, 
and death, "we stand between the evil and its cure" — thus 
intercepting the penalty, and perpetuating "the sin." As 
taught by Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo, social science has 
been well described as being " the philosophy of despair, 
resting upon an arithpietic of ruin." 



OF COMMERCE. 4S7 

CHAPTER XLII. 

or COMMERCE. 

I. — Of the Relations of the Sexet^. 

} 1. Relations of the sexes. Woman a sl.ave to man, in tlie early 8tage.s of society l[er 
condition improves as wealth and population grow, and as the real man is more devel- 
oped. Tlie more rapid the societary circulation, and the greater the tendency towards 
the creation of a scientific agriculture, the more does the sex tend towards occupying 
its true position. 

2 2. Condition of woman in Central and Northern Europe. 'Woman rises in the scale aa 
laud becomes divided, and man becomes more free. 

2 3. Saxon women sold to slavery. General Improvemeut in the condition of the women 
of England. Loss of the rights of property secured to them by the early English law. 
Deterioration of the condition of the sex, in all the countries that follow in the train of 
England. 

J 4. How the condition of Engli-h women is affected by trading centralization. Growing 
competition for the saU of female labor. Consequent low wages, and necessity for 
resorting to prostitution. Protection tends to produce competition for its purchase, 
thereby benefiting the sex throughout the world. 

i 5. Extraordinary contrasts presented by the condition of the sex in the several portions 
of the American Union. Theory of the government favorable to the creation of local 
centres, and to the elevation of the sex. Its practice, tending towards centralization, 
adverse thereto, and hence the rapid growth of female crime and prostitution. 

§ 1. The American Indian wastes in idleness the time that 
is not employed in war, or in the chase, leaving to his misera- 
ble squaw the labors incident to the care of his children, and 
to the frequent changes of place. He shoots the deer : she 
carries it home. He helps himself, and if there is enough for 
both she may eat. If there is not, she must fast. The 
savage Australian marks his wife by breaking the joints of 
her fingers and knocking out her front teeth, thereafter treat- 
ing her as a beast of burthen. The African buys his wife, 
and sells his daughters. The Turk fills his harem with slaves, 
holding their lives at their master's pleasure. — Woman is, 
thus, the slave of man, where man himself is nature's slave. 

As he gradually becomes nature's master the distinctive 
qualities of the man become developed, and he becomes fixed 
at home. Cultivation takes the place of mere appropriation, 
domestic habits gradually replace his former wandering ones, 
and his wife acquires importance as the mistress of his house, 
the companion of his joys and his sorrows, and the mother 
of his children. Brain gradually taking the place of mere 
muscle, the weak woman passes by slow degrees from the 
condition of man's slave towards that of his companion and 
his friend. 



488 criAPTER XMi. § 2. 

Woman's value grows with the growth of demand for hei 
peculiar powers, that, too, growing with the growth of wealth. 
Capital is, thus, the great equalizer, the demand for female 
faculties growing in the direct I'atio of the development of 
man's latent powers. 

Look where we may, we see that as the consumer takes his 
place by the producer's side the latent forces of the earth be- 
come stimulated into activity and land becomes divided, with 
growing tendency towards giving to every man a home of 
his own, to be to him a little savings' bank for all his surplus 
powers, and for those kindly feelings and affections which 
await the demands of wife and children. Improvement in 
woman's condition comes, thus, as man becomes more indi- 
vidualized and self-reliant. For proof of this, we must refer 
the reader once again to the diagram so often placed before 
him, desiring that he should trace the gradual change in the 
condition of the sex as he passes from the region of undivided 
land and homeless men, on the left, towards that of divided 
land and cultivated homes, on the right. 

Look in what direction we may, we find new evidence 
that it is in the near approach of the prices of rude products 
and finished commodities, and consequent increase in the 
value of man and land, we are to find the most conclusive 
evidence of advancing civilization. With every stage of 
approximation the middlemen class, whether soldiers or sail- 
ors, traders or politicians, diminishes in its proportions, with 
correspondent decline in power. With each, the circulation 
becomes more rapid — agriculture tends more to become a 
science — and woman tends more towards occupying her 
proper place, that of man's first and nearest friend — stimu- 
lating him into activity and heightening his enjoyments, 
while ever ready to administer consolation in his afflictions. 

§ 2. France, perpetually engaged in foreign and domestic 
wars, presents to view at home, during many centuries, 
striking contrasts in the condition of the sex, the poverty of 
the laboring many being in precise accordance with the mag- 
nificence of the few who live at their expense. As the feudal 
system was extended and the smaller proprietors disappeared, 
the homes of wives and daughters became less and less 
secure — the right oijambage. and cuissagp. becoming, at length, 
so universally asserted, and so generally exercised, as to cause 
the eldest son of the tenant to be held more honorable than 
his brothers, because of his highly probable relation to the 



OF COMMERCE. 489 

lord. —Abroad, her history is one of unceasing interferences 
with the righto of others. Towns and cities have been ruined, 
husbands and sons, by hundreds of thousands, slaughtered, 
while wives and mothers have been compelled to endure the 
last indignity to which their sex is liable, and daughters have 
been driven to prostitution as affording the only means of 
obtaining food. Educated abroad in the career of rape and 
murder her sons have practised at home what they so well 
had learned, the domestic history of no country of Europe 
exhibiting so total a disregard of female rights or honor as 
may there be found, from the days of Charles the Bold o.nd 
his " good butchers," to those of the noyades and the guillo- 
tine of the Revolution. 

With every stage, however, in the consolidation of the land, 
we find individual women become more and more the con- 
trollers of their country's destinies, the history of that country, 
from the days of Fredegonda and Brunechild to those of 
Maintenon, Pompadour, and Du Barre, exhibiting the sub- 
jection of a nation to female influence elsewhere unparalleled. 
With the final adoption of the system of Colbert, however, 
there came a change, land becoming divided, feudal rights 
disappearing, and the small proprietor, capable of defending 
the honor of his wife and daughters, gradually taking the 
place that theretofore had been occupied by the nobles and 
the Church. Further division coming, millions of people 
whose predecessors had been little better than mere serfs, 
obtain lands, houses, and homes of their own, of which 
the wife is chief director. "Females, both in France and 
Switzerland," says Mr. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller, 
"appear to have a far more important role in the family, 
auiong the lower and middle classes, than with us. Tl^e 
female, although not exempt from out-door work, and even 
hard work, undertakes the thinking and managing depart- 
ment in the family, affairs, and the husband is but the execu- 
tive officer. The female is, in fact, very remarkably superior 
in manners, habits, tact, and intelligence, to the husband, in 
almost every family of the middle or lower classes in Swit- 
zerland. ... In France, also, the female takes her full share 
of business with the male part of the family, in keeping 
accounts and books, and selling goods, and, in both countries, 
occupies a higher and more rational social position certainly 
than with us. This seems to be the effect of the distribution 
of property, by which the female has her share and interest 
as well as the male, and grows up with the same personal 
interest and sense of property in all around her." 



490 CHAPTER XUI. § 3. 

Throughout central and lioi'thern Europe the tendency is 
in the same direction, land becoming divided, men becoming 
more free, and woman assuming a higher place in the social 
scale as, with the growing power to command the use of 
steam and other forces, the taste and skill of the weaker sex 
are substituted for the muscular force of man. Such is now 
the teudencj in Sweden and Denmark, Belgium, Northern 
Germany, and Russia, all of which follow in the lead of 
Colbert and of Trance. In all of these, Russia perhaps ex- 
cepted, the right of the wife to the ownership of separate 
property, as well as her claim upon the husband's estate in 
case of death, is fully recognized. In none, however, does 
woman yet occupy her true position, the eye of the traveller 
being perpetually offended by the sight of women carrying- 
burdens wholly disproportioned to their strength, and engaged 
in other occupations more suited to sons or husbands. 

What is needed, however, to be determined is not the 
actual condition of any people, but the point towards which 
society is tending, gradual as may be the movement. In all 
these countries the laborer has but recently been a mere serf, 
and all, Germany especially, have suffered greatly from both 
foreign and domestic wars. 

§ 3. In the days of the Plantagenets Saxon women were 
sold as slaves, Scotch and Irish men becoming purchasers. 
With the growth of wealth and population, however, their 
condition gradually improved; yet even so late as the days 
of Blackstone, the common people exercised the privilege, 
secured to them by the older law, of giving their wives 
"domestic chastisement," in "moderation." 
^As regards the right of property, the position of English 
women is far inferior to that secured to them by the early 
English law. So recently as the reign of Charles I., the 
wife retained all her own real estate, while* entitled to a third 
of the property of her husband at his death. Now, the law 
gives to the husband the whole of the wife's property, while 
securing to her nothing whatsoever. However profligate 
may be the husband she can have no separate property, all 
her earnings being liable for his debts. In no part of the 
world, claiming to be held as civilized, is the wife so entirely 
at the mercy of the husband as in England. 

In all the countries that follow in the train of Britain the 
Bocietary proportions of the middlemen class are constantly 
increasing, when they should decrease. In all such cases it 



OP COMMERCE. 491 

is the woman who suffers most, the man being able to change 
his place, while wife and children must remain at home. The 
annihilation of Irish manufactures having deprived Irisli 
women of the employments to which they had been 
accustomed, where could they then seek to sell their labor ? 
Tlie whole Irish people having been reduced to the condition 
of mere " starvers upon potatoes and water," the men could 
yet roam abroad, seeking employment in England, or even 
beyond the ocean ; but who were left to furnish food to 
hundreds of thousands of wives and mothers, daughters and 
sisters, left behind ? Where " popular starvation," as we are 
told by a distinguished English writer, had become " the 
condition" of a whole people, what could be done with those 
who were weak of body or of mind ? It is under such cir- 
cumstances that man becomes a slave to nature, and woman 
a slave to man. 

Passing now to Turkey, we are there presented with a 
picture, drawn by an English traveller, of the " hopeless 
competition" of industrious women and children, with the 
machinery of England — the latter working assiduously 
" from the moment their little fingers can turn the spindle," 
and the former giving the unremitting labor of a week for 
the miserable pittance of an English shilling, even where 
not wholly deprived of employment by reason of inability to 
dispose of the yarn which tliey have spun. 

Turkey and India exhausted, we now witness a persistent 
effort at the demoralization of China by means of opium, 
forced intolhatcoiwtryin defiance of governmental opposition. 
For the aceom))lishment of that object two Vv-ars have been 
waged, in which cities have been stormed, men have been 
killed, and women have been violated. How far such mea- 
sures tend towards the advancement of civilization, may be 
judged of by American women who see in the dram-shop 
the greatest foe to domestic happiness and peace. 

It is in the face of all this that the women of England 
address those of America in relation to the evils of slavery, 
while an English clergyman congratulates his readers on the 
facts, that "no civilized power" has ever been "engaged \n 
such constant and multitudinous wars," there having been '-no 
month or we(?k in the history of the last two hundred years, 
in which it could l)e said" tliat they were " not interchanging 
shot or sabre stroke, somewhere or other on the surface of 
the glol)e.''' And this, as he further says, "is an indispensa- 
ble part of the British position." 



492 CHAPTER XLII. § 4. 

The British system g:ives us tlius perpetual war vpon the 
nations of tlie world by means of soldiers and sailors, and a 
perpetual " warfare" within the bosom of all those nations, 
this last being carried on by aid of those great capitalists 
who can afford to make the "sacrifices required for gaining 
and keeping possession of foreign markets." Against whom, 
however, is this double warfare chiefly carried on ? It is 
against the .weaker sex. Unfit for field labors, they find 
themselves driven from the light labor of conversion. And 
what then remains to them ? In millions of cases little else 
than prostitution ; yet are we constantly assured of the 
civilizing efi"ects of that trading system, to which the term 
" commerce" is so erroneously applied. 

§ 4. Since the days of Adam Smith more than 160,000 
small proprietors have disappeared from England, so many 
homes having lost the husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers, 
who, less than a century since, stood upon their own land 
and among their own children. Driven from the land, the 
parents seek for homes in the towns and cities, wives and 
children seeking employment in mines and factories. Simul- 
taneously, however, with the consolidation of the land we 
have the consolidation of great capitals, ever ready to crush 
domestic or foreign competition for the purchase of labor, or 
the sale of labor's products. The result is seen in the 
harrowing Reports of Parliamentary Committees, reports in 
which we are presented with females working like slaves, 
and perfectly naked, among boys and men, in the mines ; 
with wives and daughters sulyected to an amount of physical 
elfort for which they were not intended by the Creator to 
whom they owe their miserable existence. Recently there has 
been an effort at improvement ; the working of women in the 
mines having been, under certain circumstances, prohibited, 
and the hours for employment for children limited by law — 
the very necessity for such laws furnishing evidence of the 
absence of that competition for the purchase of labor which 
would enable the laborer to obtain a fair day's wages for a 
fair day's work. The " wasting shop," in which women are 
compelled to work 16 or 20 hours per day, and under a tem- 
perature so high as far to exceed the heat of the torrid zone — 
the shop in which their liv^s are "expended like those of 
cattle on a farm" — still exists • and all attempts at interference, 
with a view to the protection of these helpless women, is re- 
sisted, because of the " keenness of the competition" for the 



OF COMMERCE. 403 

salp of cloth. Wliat, however, is the object of this competi- 
tion ? That of preventing the women of India, Ireland, and 
America, from finding purchasers for their labor, physical or 
mental. The English woman is thus degraded into an in- 
strument for crushing her fellow-women throughout the 
world, her own poverty, wretchedness, and recklessness, 
being then adduced as evidence of the truth of the doctrine 
of over-population. Driven to despair, hopeless of improve- 
ment in this world and careless about the future, she next is 
urged to the adoption of the Malthusian panacea of " moral 
restraint I" It is a mere mockery of words to suggest the 
idea under existing circumstances. 

Centralization forces Irish women to seek in England pur- 
chasers for their labor, thus augmenting the competition for 
its sale and giving to those who need to purchase power to 
determine what shall be the quantity of effort given, and 
what the compensation paid. That is slavery. Centralization, 
in like manner, is producing the effect of making London the 
only place in England itself for the sale of female taste or 
skill, while greatly limiting the range of female employments. 
The effect is seen in the unhappy condition of poor girls who 
aspire to become milliners, compelled, as they are, to labor, 
for months together, no less than 20 hours out of the 24 — 
breathing the foul air of the workshops, and receiving the 
poorest food in exchange for instruction of which they are 
perpetually defrauded. Consumption closes the career of 
these more delicate instruments of trade, leaving to the 
hardier and less-aspiring journeywomen to seek in prostitu- 
tion the means of support in the intervals of seasons. 

Lower, even, than these latter, are the slop-workers, the 
" horrors" of whose " white slavery," says a recent writer, 
" have not been exaggerated." " How," he continues, " could 
such colossal fortunes be made by Hebrew and other outfitter;^, 
if the soil from which the harvest issued were not plentifully 
watered and manured with blood and tears ? Everybody 
knows that London is full of 'distressed needle-women.' 
But how, it may be asked, is this to be helped ? There is a 
demand for cheap garments, and a demand for employment 
in the making of them, even greater than the demand for the 
garments themselves. Miserable as is the pittance they 
receive, it is better than nothing. It is better to be hungry 
than to die. You may see the poor creatures clustering 
about the doors of the slop-shops, with their sharp, eager 
faces, waiting for their supply of wretched work as though 
42 



494 CHAPTER XLIl. § 4. 

their very lives depended upon the issue. One wonders tlmi 
it should be so — but so it is." An inquiry made some year?, 
since, showed that there were in London, of such persons, no 
less than 33,000, "permanently at the starvation-point — 
working at the wages of a few pence per day." 

These poor women are all competing with each other for 
the sale of their only commodity, failing to dispose of which 
they are driven to prostitution. Need we, then, wonder 
that it should be now probable that 50,000 females walk the 
streets of that great city, at night, "wholly because they are 
unable to obtain a living in any other way." A large pro- 
portion of these, as we are assured, have been domestic 
servants, needle-women, waistcoat makers, etc., "driven to 
dishonesty by the difficult}^ of obtaining honest employment ; 
and there is scarcely one of them who ivould not forsake her 
unhappy calling to-mor7'Ow if honorable work could be pro- 
vided for her.'" "We err," says the same writer, "more 
barbarously than those nations among whom a plurality of 
wives is permitted, and who regard women purely as so much 
live stock; for among such people women are, at all events, 
provided with shelter, with food, and clothing — they are 
' cared for' as cattle are. There is a completeness in such a 
system. But we treat women as cattle without providing for 
them as cattle. We take the worst part of barbarism and the 
worst part of civilization, and work them into a heterogeneous 
whole. We bring up our women to be dependent, and then 
leave them without any one to depend on. There is nothing 
for them to lean npon ; and they fall to the ground." 

This is slavery, and of the worst kind, and the longer the 
system shall be maintained the more oppressive must it 
become — its foundation now, as in the days of Adam Smith, 
being found in the idea of cheapening labor and all other raw 
materials of manufacture. The tendency of the modern free- 
trade system is towards making of woman that mere instru- 
ment to be used by trade, so well described by Hood in his 
admirable but melancholy " Song of a Shirt." 

Colonization being, as we are told, the remedy for excess 
of numbers, every nerve is strained in the effort to expel the 
surplus population. Who are they, however, who emigrate ? 
The men — leaving wives, daughters, and sisters behind to 
provide for themselves as they may. The surplus of British 
females already exceeds half a million, and it must increase, 
the tendency of the existing system being that of dispersing 
the men in the hope of further cheapening the rude produo^s 



OF COMMERCE. 495 

of the soil, and with the effect of increasing the conapetition 
for the sale of labor. 

§ 5. Here, as everywhere, the American Union is a country 
of contrasts, one portion exhibiting woman in the enjoyment 
of a degree of freedom elsewhere unknown ; while in another, 
females, married and unmarried, are passed from hand to 
hand as mere chattels, being sold at the auction-block, with 
or without fathers, husbands, sisters, brothers, children. — 
Looking towards commerce, the tendency, in the former, 
has been towards the creation of local centres, facilitating 
association, and producing development of the latent powers 
of the earth, and of the men and women for whose use that 
earth was given. — Believing in the omnipotence of trade, 
and seeking the extension of its dominion, the latter has 
moved in the reverse direction — the result being seen in 
annihilation of local centres, diminution of the power of 
association, exhaustion of the soil, and limitation of demand 
for female powers. — In the one, the tendency is uniform in 
the direction of such alterations of the English law as shall 
give to the wife a separate right of property. In the other, 
it has as uniformly been in that of taking from woman the 
power, under any circumstances, to obtain the right of 
property in themselves. 

Centralization, however, grows daily, and with its growth 
we find a tendency to the production in the first of the 
evils that, as we see, have been produced in England 
Exhaustion of the soil of the older States expels the men, 
while leaving helpless women behind to seek a livelihood as 
best they may. Manufactures decline, with constant diminu- 
tion in the demand for female skill and taste, and correspond- 
ing tendency towards forcing them to seek, in distant cities, 
the employment no longer found at home. Competition for 
the mle of female labor, therefore, grows steadily, thousands 
being "crazy to work at any price." Look where we may, 
throughout the Union, we shall find conclusive evidence that 
freedom for both man and woman comes with diversity in the 
demand for human powers ; slavery, with all its attendant 
evils, being a necessary consequence of limitation to the 
labors of the field. American policy tends in the latter 
direction, and therefore it is that crime and prostitution so 
rapidly increase. How it affects the relations of the family, 
we may next inquire. 



496 CHAPTER XLIII. § 1. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

OF COMMERCE — CONTINUED. 

II. — Of the. Relatione of the Family. 

J 1. Kelations of the Family. Weakness of the Family ties, in the early stages of society, 
llesponsibility, in both parent and child, grows with division of the land, and with tho 
approximation of consumers to producers. 

g 2. iiducation in Central and Northern Europe. Growing feeling of responsibility for 
proper traiuing of youth, as manifested in all those countries in which employments are 
becoming more diversified. 

g 3. Reverse of this exhibited in those which follow in the train of England — employments 
there becoming less diversified. Condition of English children. Absence of provision 
for general education. Child-murder. Children regarded as mere instruments to be 
used by trade. Consequent necessity for a theory of over-population. 

g 4. Extraordinary contrasts here again presented by the American Union. That educa- 
tion given in the school may prove usef«l, it is needed that there be demand for the 
faculties there developed. That there may be such demand, it is required that there be 
diversity in the modes of employment. That the latter may exist, there is needed an 
exercise of the power of the State. 

§ 1. The wretched savage, slave to nature and limited 
to the work of mere appropriation, sees in the birth of his 
child but an addition to his burthens, and, but for the affec- 
tion of the mother, few, particularly of the weaker sex, would 
live for even a single day. Arriving at maturity, the child, 
in turn, sees in the parent only a useless competitor for the 
poor supply of food and buries him alive, or leaves him to 
become the prey of wolves. 

The civilized man, master of nature, rejoices ia each addi- 
tion to his family circle. Cultivating the richer soils and 
finding in the neighboring markets a demand for all their pro- 
ducts, his land and labor become, from day to day, more 
valuable. His leisure growing with every step in that 
direction, he is enabled to give his attention more fully to the 
formation of his children's characters, thus preparing them for 
becoming good and useful citizens. Combining with his 
neighbor, he aids in the establishment of schools and colleges, 
preferring the happiness and prosperity of future generations 
before his present appetites. The child, in turn, desires to 
aid his father in his age, paying the debts incurred in youth, 
and respecting his rights as his own had been respected. 

Look where we may, we find that as employments become 
diversified the commerce of the family becomes more intimate, 
parents and children becoming more fully sensible of their 



OF COMMERCE. 497 

responsibilities towards each other, and the holiness of home 
becoming more thoroughly appreciated. 

§ 2. Of the European nations, one portion, as we know, 
follows in the lead of Colbert, seeking to place the consumer 
by the side of the producer, and thus relieve the farmer from 
the grinding tax of transportation. Chief among these is 
France, to which we now may turn, seeking to ascertain to 
what extent the pursuit of that policy has awakened any feel- 
ing of responsibility in reference to development of the youth- 
ful mind. 

Always at war, abroad or at home, the tendency, through- 
out that country during many centuries, was in the direction 
of consolidation of the land, centralization of power in the 
nobles and the Church, and enslavement of the people. 
Famines and pestilences being of perpetual recurrence 
children were generally regarded as incumbrances, and of 
those that were born but a small proportion arrived at man- 
hood. With the final adoption of Colbert's policy, however, 
there came a change, land becoming gradually divided, and 
the feeling of responsibility at length manifesting itself in a 
provision of the Constitution of 1791 by which it was de- 
clared, that there must be organized a sj'stem of instruction 
common to all, and " gratuitous, so far as regarded that 
instruction which was indispensable to all." Unceasing wars 
and revolutions, however, prevented progress in that direction, 
and, so recently as 1830, of all the young men subject to the 
conscription more than half could neither read nor write. 
As late as 1836, there were whole cantons, embracing fifteen 
or twent}"^ communes, that were wholly destitute of schools, 
while, throughout the kingdom, out of nearly 23,000,000 
adults, more than 14,000,000 could neither read nor write. 
Since then, however, the change has been very great — the 
law of 1833 having provided not only for gratuitous primary 
instruction, but, also, for a system of secondary instruction, 
calculated to fit the youth of the nation for employment in 
the arts, and in a scientific agriculture. In 1850, the total 
number of pupils in the primary schools was 3,784,797, hav- 
ing almost quadrupled in the short space of 20 years. 

Turning now to Denmark, in which, but seventy years 
since, the peasant was liable to be flogged and imprisoned at 
tlie pleasure of his lord, we find that not only is one in every 
four of the population at school, but that libraries, museums, 
and newspapers, are to be found in all of the larger towns. 



498 CHAPTER XLTH. § 2. 

while educational institutions, and other indications of intel- 
lectual tastes, are to be met with in all the smaller ones — 
local centres of industrial activity, meanwhile, providing for 
the application to the various purposes of life of the mind 
developed in the schools. 

In Sweden, one in every six of the population being an 
attendant of the schools, it is rare to meet with a person who 
cannot read and write. 

In Belgium, in 1830, the number of children attending the 
primary schools was 293,000. In 1856, it had risen to 1 in 
8 of the total population. 

In Northern Grermany, every child, for the last 30 years, 
has been receiving a good education. " Four years since," 
says Mr. Kay, writing in 1850, "the Prussian Government 
made a general inquiry throughout the kingdom, to discover 
how far the school education of the people had been extended, 
and it was then ascertained that out of all the young men in 
the kingdom who had attained the age of twenty-one years, 
only two in every hundred were unable to read. 

" In the towns of Germany and Switzerland," as he further 
eays, " I was assured by Dr. Bruggeman, the Roman Catholic 
Counsellor in the Educational Office in Berlin, and by several 
teachers and other persons, that not only were the interesting 
works of German literature perused by the poorest people of 
the towns, but that translations of the works of Sir Walter 
Scott, and of many other foreign novelists and writers, were 
generally read by the poor. 

" Often and often have I seen the poor cab-drivers of Ber- 
lin, while waiting for a fare, amusing themselves by reading 
German books, which they had brought with them in the 
morning expressly for the purpose of supplying amusem'ent 
and occupation for their leisure hours. ■ 

"In many parts of these countries, the peasants and the 
workmen of the towns attend regular weekly lectures or 
weekly classes, where they practise singing or chanting, or 
learn mechanical drawing, history, or science. 

" Women as well as men, girls as well as boys, enjoy in 
these countries the same advantages, and go through the 
same school education. The women of the poorer classes of 
these countries, in point of intelligence and knowledge, are 
almost equal to the men." 

Half a century since, the total number of pupils in the 
schools of Spain was but 30,000 ; whereas, seven years since, 
it had increased to no less thaa 700,000 — being 1 in It of the 
total population. 



OF COMMERCE. 499 

§ 3. Looking next to the countries that follow in the lead 
of England, we find that from India schools have almost dis 
appeared ; while Portugal and Turkey exhibit nothing that 
deserves the name of general education. Ireland, before the 
Union, as has been already shown, furnished so large a market 
for books as to warrant the republication of the principal 
works produced in England. With the Union that market 
wholly disappeared. Recently, an extensive svstera of in- 
struction has been organized, and its results are highly spoken 
of; but of what avail is the education of the schools where 
there exists no demand for the faculties thereby developed ? 
Ireland having no manufactures, and consequently no agricul- 
ture that deserves the name, there can be no power of combi- 
nation ; the faculties of the people must remain undeveloped ; 
the societary circulation must remain more sluggish than that 
of any other country claiming to be civilized ; and the great 
disease of over-population must continue to exist. 

Arriving at the centre of this system, and the home of the 
over-population doctrine, it becomes essential to observe, 
that, while France has been the seat of civil and religious 
wars followed by repeated invasions of her soil by foreign 
armies ; while Belgium has been the almost constant theatre 
of war for assembled Europe; and while Germany has been, 
for centuries, ravaged by contending armies; England has 
scarcely, since the Conquest, witnessed the presence of a 
hostile foot, and never, since the Scottish outbreak of 1745, 
heard the explosion of a hostile gun. Such having been the 
case, there exists the strongest reason for expecting to find 
her far in advance of Continental Europe in the manifestation 
of a feeling of responsibility for the proper training of her 
youth, and in the power to carry into effect all the measures 
by it suggested. So far, however, is it the reverse of this, 
that here it is we find a growing consolidation of the land, 
accompanied by a total failure on the part of the government 
to establish any system of education similar to those in 
Northern and Central Europe. As a consequence of this it 
is, says Mr. Kay, that, "of the children of the poor, who are 
y^early born in England, vast numbers never receive any edu- 
cation at all, while many others never enter any thing better 
than a dame or a Sunday-school. * * * Many town 
parishes," lie continues, "are without any schools at all; 
the instruction given in most of the schools which are 
established is miserable in its character; infant schools 
are terribly needed in almost every town in England. 



500 CHAPTER XLIIT. § 3. 

Efficient teachers are needed everywhere. Every child ii; 
Germany and Switzerland remains in school, or continues to 
receive education, from the age of six to that of fourteen, and 
often to that of sixteen or seventeen ; while in England, even 
of those children who do go to school, few remain there 
beyond the age of nine or ten. If all this be true, is it to be 
wondered at that the dress of our peasants, their manners, 
their appearance, their amusements, their manner of speak- 
ing, their cleanliness, the character of their houses, the con- 
dition of their children, and their intelligence, should be all 
miserably inferior to those of the peasants of Germany, Hol- 
land, and of some parts of Switzerland and France ?" 

Of the males who are married in France and England, one- 
third make their marks when signing the parish register, the 
proportion in each being almost precisely the same. Of the 
females, rather less than half in England, and more than half 
in France, do so, the advantage, in this case, being on the 
side of the former. The question here, however, as every- 
where, is not of actual condition, but of progress, and in this 
France takes the lead, the number of her day scholars having 
almost quadrupled in eighteen years, while in England it had 
not even doubled.* 

Of the extent to which infanticide is carried Ave have 
spoken in a former chapter, but of that other species of child- 
murder which consists in the hiring out, by parents or 

* Number of Euglish day scholars in 1833, 1,548,890, or 1 in 11-27 
" " " 1851, 2,407,409, or 1 in 8-36 

The fact, however, is exhibited, says Mr. Treraenheere, in his re- 
port, that "the great bulk of the children leave the elementary 
schools before they are ten years old,'" that their attendance is very 
irregular, and that the little they may have learned ''is all nearly 
lost after a few years." 

" At the annual bindings," says Mr. Wood, Chairman of the Insti- 
tute of Mining Engineers, '■''there is scarcely a single man or boij luho 
signs his own name to the bond ; and yet these men and boys have gone through 
the schools, and we suppose that they have learned to read and write, but 
they have left school at so early an age that they lose what little they 
have learned, and you find them incapable of writing their own 
names." 

"Wherever we turn, ignorance, not always allied to poverty, 
stares us in the face. If we look in the Gaze te, at the list of part- 
nerships dissolved, not a month passes but some unhappy man, 
rolling perhaps in wealth, but wallowing in ignorance, is put to the 
experhnentum crucis of 'his mark.' The number of petty jurors, in 
rural districts especially, who can only sign with a cross, is enor- 
mous." — Dickens: Household Words. 



OF COMMERCE. 501 

guardians, of chiklren ranging from 6 to 8, 10, and 12 years, 
it is proper here to speak. Tiie persons to whom these poor 
creatures are transferred, and by whom they are tortured, 
says a recent Englisb writer, " employ two sorts of machinery 
in their business : one being made of flesli, the otlier of wood 
and iron. If a wheel or strap becomes entangled," as she 
continues, " it is set to rights by the proper workman ; if so 
injured as not to allow of speedy repairing, it is thrown by, 
and a new one substituted, to avoid any delay. Just so it is 
with the human department. Why should any difference be 
made ? Why should not a child be worked as long as it can 
be compelled to go on, with a little occasional quick patching, 
and when it cannot, be thrown into the street, just as a 
broken wheel is thrown into the lumber-room, to fall to 
pieces ? It is not to be expected that the master's profits of 
a few hundreds, or thousands, per annum, should be decreased 
to the amount, now and then, of one-and-sixpence, by allow- 
ing a little creature, that has worked itself ill in his seivice, 
to lie by for a week without forfeiting its eighteen pence ; or 
to retain its claim to re-admission on recovery. But add to 
this the fact, that what the child earns is not at its own dis- 
posal, going to remunerate the person who has charge of it, 
for such food and such clothing as it gets, we may believe 
the little laborer to be in the position of a shuttlecock, struck 
alternately from one battledore to the other, until, escaping a 
stroke, it falls to the ground, and is trampled into kindred 
dust.'-* 

That the facts arc so, and that helpless little beings are 
thus treated as mere machines, is proved by thousands of 
facts that have, at various times, been brought to light by 
parliamentary and other investigations. No one who has 
studied the subject can hesitate about agreeing with this 
writer in her expression of the opinion, that " the misery, the 
wretchedness, the sufferings, the degradation of young English 
girls, far exceeded those of the little heathen abroad ; nor is 
the foulest system of pagan demoralization, cruelty, and 
crime, second in atrocity to that which varnishes itself over 
with the name of Christianity, and seizes for its victims the 
free-born children of Britain, baptized into a faith of which 
they live and die in soul-destroying ignorance." 

Strikingly in contrast with tiiis is the fact, "that all the 
children between the ages of six and fifteen, in the German 

* Chahi.otib Elizabetu : Wioncjs of Woman, Part III., p. 100 



502 CHAPTER XLIII. § 4. 

aud Swiss towns, and nearly all the children in the French, 
Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian towns, spend every day in 
airy, roomy, clean, and well-furnished class-rooms, or in dry 
exercise grounds, and often in the company of children of the 
middle-classes, and in the society of men who are fit to be the 
teachers of the children of the rich." 

Differing in all else — climate, soil, habits, manners, and re- 
ligion — the people of the countries last above referred to are 
alike in the fact, that they " live, move, and have their being" 
under the system for which the world is indebted to Colbert 
— that system which looks to the promotion of the habit of 
association and combination, and the development of the 
latent powers of land and man. As a consequence, the family 
relation tends to become more cheering from day to day — the 
feeling of responsibility for the proper direction of the infant 
mind becoming more intense from year to year. DiffeT'ing 
in all else, the various countries that follow in the lead of 
England unite with England herself in rejecting Adam Smith 
and adopting the principles of the Ricardo-Malthusian school 
the result, being seen in this, that they constitute the great 
treasury of facts to be used in support of the theory of over- 
population, the helpless child there becoming more and more 
a mere instrument to be used by trade. 

Of all communities, past and present, there is, and has been, 
none so highly favored as England in respect to the power 
placed at its command by a beneficent Providence, to be used 
for promoting the happiness and prospeiity of mankind at 
large. Of all, there is none by which the power granted has 
been so unscrupulously used for the destruction of happiness, 
morals, and life, at home and abroad ; and hence it is that it 
has been necessary to establish a natural discord, with a view 
to proving that an omniscient Deity had erred in adjusting 
the supply of food to a growing population. 

§ 4. Here, as everywhere, America is a land of contrasts 
one portion of the TJnion prohibiting, bythe most stringent 
laws, the education of its laboring population, while the other 
recognizes fully the right of all to receive instruction, and the 
duty of property to aid in seeing that it be obtained. In the 
one, teachers are imprisoned for violation of the anti-educa- 
tion laws, while in the other, few persons are more respected 
than those who most have labored to bring the means of edu- 
3ation within the reach of all— the orphan and the criminal, 
the veiy poor as well as the very rich. 



OF COMMERCE. 503 

Books have been written with the intent to prove that 
crmie and education go tugether; that is, that tlie greater 
the power of the man to command the services of his own 
faculties, the greater is his tendency to interfere with the 
rights of others. Were this so, it would be better to close 
the schools. That it is not, the reader may feel well assured. 
\\'liy it sometimes so appears, is, as we think, easily ex- 
pliiined. 

That the development of human faculties may be beneficial 
to man, it is indispensable that there be a market for the 
faculties developed, the rankest weeds coming always from 
the richest soil, neglected by its owner. That the market, 
may exist, there must be diversity in the* modes of employ- 
ment, producing competition for the purchase, of human efibrt 
of each and every kind. Centralization tends to prevent the 
growth of this competition while promoting competition for 
its sale, the man who needs to sell his efforts becoming, thus, 
the slave of him who has means with which to purchase. 
The greater the tendency in this direction the more does 
society tend to become divided into two great classes — the 
very poor and the very rich — leaving no place for the pro- 
prietors of small amounts of either material or mental capital. 
1'he class of middlemen, occupying themselves as soldiers, 
sailors, traders, lawyers, and otherwise as non-producers, 
grows necessarily, the societary motion becoming slower at 
every stage of growth, and rendering it more diflBcult to ob- 
tain an honest livelihood. Crime, therefore, grows, doing 
this as a direct consequence of that slight excitement of 
human faculty produced at school, which needs the activity 
of social life for its full development. Under such circum- 
stances education does little more than sharpen the human 
faculties for enabling man more readily to prey upon bis 
fellow-man, that being the present tendency in England ano 
in all the countries which follow in her train, America 
iniluded. 

Study the world where we may, we shall find evidence ot 
the truth of the proposition, that the feeling of responsibility 
towards both God and man grows with that approximation 
of the prices of raw materials and finished commodities, and 
consequent increase in the productiveness of labor, which 
results from proper exercise of the powers of the State. 



504 CHAPTER XLIV. § 1. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

OF COMMERCE — CONTINUED. 

III. — Of the Commerce of the State. 

J 1. Commerce of the state. Solidarity of the human race. Two-fold nature of man. Cor- 
respondence between the structure and functions of the individual man and the aggre- 
gate man denominated Society. Co-ordinating office of the brain. Its power limited 
hy the necessary liberty of the individual organs. Various degi'ees of subordination of 
the parts. Necessity for exercise of the power of co-ordination grows in individuals and 
societies as the organization becomes more complete. Local centres of the physical and 
social systems. Power and duties of the brain. Order and liberty combined and se- 
cured. Graduated and federated system of government in the human body analogous 
to the political organization of that social one which constitutes these United States. 

\ 2. Social science here branches into political economy — the one treating of natural laws, 
and the other of the measures required for enabling those laws to have full effect. Re- 
lation of science and art as exhibited by M. Comte. Necessity for exercise of the power 
of co-ordination. The more perfect the co-ordination the more complete the develop- 
ment of all the parts, and the more harmonious the action of the whole. Tendency to 
the creation of local centres. The .more perfect the balance of opposing forces, the 
greater the tendency towards human freedom. Duty of the co-ordinating power limited 
to the removal of obstacles to association. 

g 3. Colbert and his policy. His full appreciation of the necessity for the exercise, by the 
State, of a power of co-ordination. Hume, on the necessity for preserving with care the 
manufactures of a nation. Adam Smith no advocate of the indiscriminate adoption of 
the system of laisser f aire. Say, Rossi, Mill, and others, on the duties of a government, 
in reference to diversification of employments. M. Chevalier holds that within certain 
limits governments are but performing a positive duty when they favor the taking 
possession of all the branches of industry whose acquisition is authorized by the nature 
of things. Holds that French agriculture has ceased to be protected. Inaccuracy of 
the view thus presented. Heavy taxation of transportation paid by American farmers, 
and comparative exemption of those of France. Freedom of trade enjoyed by the latter, 
as compared with the restrictions on the former. Necessity for exercise of the co-ordi- 
nating power grows with the growth of wealth and numbers. The more perfect the 
power of association within the State, the greater the power of its people to contribute 
to the commerce of the world. 

§ 1. The complex organism of the human body being, by 
the sjmipathies and dependencies of its various parts, made 
an unit in its action and its uses, the entire race, philosophi- 
cally and practically considered, may be treated as one man, 
the aggregate differing in degree, but not in kind, from any 
of the atoms of which it is composed. Politically, we have 
the idea embraced in our national motto, e pluribus uvum, 
the same fact presenting itself in the legal ideas of joint and 
several obligation, and joint and several right, where each 
debtor is bound for the whole debt, and each creditor is en- 
titled to look to each and all for payment. The corporation, 
or artificial man, is another familiar instance of the same idea, 
the moralist, in his turn, using the word solidarity for indi- 



Vt' COMMEl-.CE. 505 

ratiri£» the liability of each and all the members of society to 
fluffcir for tlie errors, or profit of the judicious action, of any 
of its component parts. The recognition of analogy here 
exhibited runs through all branches of theory and practice 
having man for their subject, warranting the study of the 
many in the one, and promising helpful illustrations of the 
societary body to be derived from examination of the indi- 
\ idual. 

The living man, whether considered in regard to the doub- 
'.ing of the sexes, the union of soul and body, the individual 
and his race, or that aspect of his life in which he is at once 
an organic instrument and a being holding the relation of 
agent and object to the world around him, is a being of two- 
fold existence. He has a vegetable and an animal, or an in- 
dividual and a relative life, and an appropriate set of organs 
for the service of each, all bound together into a happily- 
adjusted union, mechanical so far as regards framework and 
connection, but vital in all that relates to sensation, percep- 
tion, consciousness and volition. The articulation of the 
limbs and muscles, and the collocation and distribution of the 
internal organs, are linked together b\^ mechanical arrange- 
ment, the nervous system, however, presiding over and exe- 
cuting the co-ordination of the various parts of the body 
among themselves, and being, too, the sole agency by which 
the relative life of the individual is administered and sus- 
tained. 

Man's relative life, for the purposes of our inquiry, may be 
comprehended in his powers of locomotion and sensation, and 
in his higher instincts, the sentiments, and moral and intel- 
lectual faculties of his nature. Each of these has its fitting 
nervous organism, and the anatomical structure of the ner- 
vous system necessarily answers to this complication and 
combination of offices, appropriateness of apparatus being 
here, as everywhere throughout creation, logically expectant 
upon the existence of a need for it. The nervous masses, 
ganglions, plexuses, and fibres, are immensely varied in form, 
texture, and arrangement; and those parts of the system 
which supply the organs of nutritive life, while so far inde- 
pendent of those which rule the life of relation as is needed 
for fitting them to maintain the economy of the frame, are yet 
po-far subordinated to the superior portions as is required for 
the interests and uses of the physical organism. Over the 
ultimate processes of assimilation, nutrition, reproduction, and 
growth, the brain proper has but little conscious control. 



506 CHAPTER XLIV. § 1. 

Over those organisms which are the purveyors to the oody's 
wants, it ha.-i an authority that is greatly larger. It has a 
positive contvol over the primary steps of the nutritive pro- 
cess, as in the selection, prehension, and ingestion of food. 
To a certain extent it modifies, suspends, or accelerates di- 
gestion, and in a considerable degree effects respiration — it? 
power of intervention shading off towards incapacity as the 
actions escape from the sphere of voluntary agency into that 
of necessity and unconsciousness. 

The external senses are still more fully subject to the brain 
directly as to the mental, while indirectly as to the instinctive, 
life ot the subject. This law of gradation obtains also among 
them, taste and smell, which stand as sentinels over organic 
life, being almost entirely independent of the will. Hearing, 
important as it is as an inlet to the tidings of danger, is 
nearly as much so, while touch and vision, with their larger 
range of subserviency to the intellect, are proportionably obe- 
dient to its direction. High above, the brain, in its proper 
office of thought and emotion, is free, spontaneous, and para- 
mount in the nervous economy of the system. 

Here, to proceed no further in details, is a world of variety 
in unity, subordinated and co-ordinated, executive authority 
and independence balancing each other in a manner that 
fairly illustrates the various interests of the life of the human 
race. 

The two-fold physiological division of the life of man, as 
an organic and as a related being, is analogous to the man as 
an individual and as a member of society. The physical sup- 
])ort of the system being the primary object of nutrition, that 
portion of the work is not under the control of the governing 
brain, nor subject to its casual impulses. Nevertheless, be- 
yond the instinctive nurture of infancy, the intellect, and its 
servants, the limbs, are required to act in obtaining a supply 
of food. Infant societies may therefore, on the same prin- 
ciple, supply their animal wants without the intervention of 
an executive intelligence. In the more mature life of the 
community, however, as in the developed growth of the indi- 
vidual, a head, with its executive ministers, becomes abso- 
lutely indispensable. The government, representing, as it 
does, the intelligence of the body, physical and social, has a 
duty and a use, and therefore a right to a place in the natural 
order. While ministering to the well-being of the body, it 
does not intervene in the central movements. ' Laisse.r faire is 
there the law — ruling all that has already been appropriated. 



OF COMMERCE. 507 

Elsewhere, we fiml rotjiiliitive lu'lp in br'ns^iiig; the siiste- 
naiice of the l)0(ly within its reacli, and gniurdianslii}) in ward- 
ing off all disturbing and injurious influences from without, 
giving liberty to the internal life, and protection to the social 
life — that protection, too, embracing both assistance and de- 
fence. 

Further, the digestive and assimilative organs are variously 
related, each having its own peculiar function, though inti- 
niately interlinked with its associates. They are a corpora- 
tion of converting laborers. The stomach, liver, pancreas, 
intestinal tube, and lacteal vessels, are principal members of 
the association — all, however, bound into corporate unity by 
the great S3'mpathetic nerve wliich frees them from the con- 
trol of the governing brain to the extent required for securing 
their due efficiency in their proper offices. Nevertheless, 
while supplied with power by a special and separating sot 
dl' nerves, each one has a branch of direct communication 
<vith the central nervous mass. In other woi'ds, they are 
more closely connected with et^ch other than are any of them 
with the all-governing brain, and can perform their functions 
for a short time, and in an inferior degree, when its agency is 
entirely withheld. In reptiles, the digestive apparatus con- 
tinues to act long after the head has been severed from the 
body. In the human foetus, the growth of the body is per- 
fect even where the brain is absent. " At birth, however, the 
acephalous foetus perishes for want of the co-ordinating brain- 
power, the decollated tortoise doing the same after a few 
hours of the like deprivation. The necessity for a co-ordi- 
nating powe.r appearsi, IheYefore, to exist in the direct ralic 
of develop meat. 

In a state of absolute isolation, or of feeble so(!ial relation, 
man, denied the ))rotection resulting from combination, has but 
a low grade of individual e.xistence. In the healthy maturity 
of society the independence of the individual cannot be en- 
tire, either in extent or in degree. Threads of common life 
hold him in a general dependency upon every neighbor man, 
while organized government stretches its lines of support, pro- 
tection, and harmonizing restraint, over all the points in which 
his life has its relative issues. 

The theory of political government of these United States 
is in an obvious general harmony with the vital economy as 
here exhibited. The individual, having rights and interests 
with which no one ventures to interfere, scarcely feels the 
rein of the ruling power, though receiving its vital impulse 



508 CHAPTER XLIV. § 2. 

The family, held together by its proper sympathetic ties, ia 
obedient to an almost unconscious influence of the central life. 
The school district has powers which it exercises indepen- 
dently of that larger societ}'- from which it derives its powers, 
and to which it is responsible for the rightful exercise of its 
functions. The township enjoys a similar independence, 
feeling the corresponding control of the county. The county 
holds its franchises under similar conditions of freedom and 
limitation. The State is sovereign in all remoter and more 
general relations, consistent with the supremacy of the Union 
— that, again, being supreme only in what is essential to the 
harmony and well-being of the whole. 

§ 2. Social science here branches into political economy — 
the former treating of the laws which govern man in his 
effort to secure for himself the highest individuality and the 
greatest power of association with his fellow-men, and the 
latter of the mea.surey required for so co-ordinating the move- 
ments of society as to enable the laws to take effect. Careful 
study of the law is indispensable to success in practice, the 
relations of the one to the other being well expressed in the 
words of M. Comte : "Science whence foresight, foresight 
whence action." 

Men desire to associate, conscious that their own strength 
and power will thereby be increased. Met together, selfish- 
ness is found opposing itself to measures that would promote 
the good of all. Such being the case, some certain persons 
must act as umpires, empowered so to co-ordinate the 
societary movements as to call into activity the powers of all 
its members, while requiring all to respect the rights of those 
around them — the object sought to be obtained being the 
removal of obstacles standing in the way of association. 

The greatest obstacle thereto being the necessity for 
effecting changes of place, one of the earliest wants of man is 
that of roads. At first, the footpath supplies the only means 
of intercourse ; but, as numbers increase, the pack-horse takes 
the place of man.^ In time, however, better roads are needed ; 
but now the difficulty arises, that the owner of the pack-horse, 
in his Ignorant selfishness, opposes their construction under 
the belief that the demand for his services and those of his 
animals may thereby be lessened. The farmer, too, opposes 
it, because it will divide his farm, overlooking the fact that 
the economy of transportation must double the money-value 
of his property. In this state of things, society, by its head, 



OF COMMERCE. 509 

Steps in, deciding the terms upon which the land shall be 
yielded for societar\^ purposes. Later, turnpikes and rail- 
roads are needed ; but how, in the absence of a co-ordinating 
head, could such roads be made ? Were each and everv 
proprietor along the line to make his separate piece, eacli 
would be owner of his share, charging at his pleasure for its 
u.se. Here, again, society comes in, fixing the terms upon 
which the land may be taken, and the tolls that may be 
claimed, creating an artificial man, and authorizing the head 
of the body thus created to direct the operations. 

So, too, is it with regard to various other wants of the 
community : as, the supply of water and gas to cities ; the 
stamping of the precious metals for use ; the establishment 
of weights and measures ; the explorations needed for the 
(jpening of mines. In all of these, and many other cases, the 
central power steps in to remove the difficulties that would 
be created by individual selfishness and ignorance, and thus 
enables the community'' to attain the desired object. 

A country embraces all the varieties of soil and climate 
requisite for a very varied agriculture, from the barley of the 
North to the sugar of the South ; and yet its inhabitants 
are compelled to go abroad for various articles, paying many 
times the original cost, and losing annually more than would, 
if properly applied, suffice for naturalizing them at home. 
Society now comes to their aid, asking each and every con- 
tributor to the tax of transportation to pay into a common 
fund a small per centage of its amount, to be applied to the 
introduction of seeds and knowledge, by means of which they 
may in a brief period be relieved fronj the payment of further 
contributions.* 

Schools develop the faculties of the younger portion of the 
community, but, in default of diversity in the modes of em- 

* The amount paid annually for transporting tea to the United 
States would probably suffice for securing the successful establish- 
nient of tlie tea culture at home. Such a work, however, would 
ruin any individual, as it did beggar the enterprising man by whom, 
some years since, it was undertaken. The tea seed mu.st be pro- 
cured from China, whose people naturally resist the exportation of 
the best seed, as prejudicial to their interests. So the tea shippers, 
commission merchants, importers, etc., regard the establishment 
of the tea culture here as a deadly blow to the craft whereby tliey 
have their wealth. Then, the proper climate, soil, and culture, in 
this country, have all to be ascertained by patient and repeated ex- 
periments, wliich, however triumphant in their lesults, must be 
costly in their progress. 



510 CHAPTER XLIV. § 2. 

ployment, those who might distinguish themselves in the 
workshop are compelled to remain idle, if they would ■aot 
follow the plow, or begin to trade. Iron ore and fuel abound, 
but, there being no furnaces, both remain useless, and the 
farmer can scarcely obtain a plough. Wool abounds, but as 
there is no woollens mill the farmer's daughter is idle, while 
he himself cannot obtain a coat. Corn abounds, but tlje cost 
of transporting it to a distant market leaves little to its pro- 
ducer. Building materials, and labor unemployed, abound, 
but those who migh4»undertake to build the furnace or the mill 
would speedily find that, however much their operations might 
tend towards increasing the quantity of cloth and iron, their 
distant competitors would still so far control the market as to 
drive them from it, to their own entire ruin. In this state of 
things society says to the farmers and laborers, that the 
establishment of mills and furnaces would double the value 
of both land and labor, and that to enable them to combine 
their efforts for the erection of such establishments, it will 
require of the foreign producers of cloth and iron a certain 
portion of the value of all they may import — applying the 
proceeds to the making of new and better roads, or to paying 
the expenses of government; thus improving the modes of 
communication among themselves, while relieving them at 
once and forever from the oppressive tax of transportation 
to the distant market. 

In all these cases, the political head does exactly that which 
is done by the physical one, co-ordinating the movements of 
society in such manner as to remove the obstacles to associa- 
tion. The more perfect that co-ordination, whether in the 
physical or social Joody, the more complete must be the 
development of all the parts, and the more harmonious the 
action of the whole. 

It may, however, be said, that the exercise of these various 
powers tends towards centralization, yet is the reverse of this 
the case. Every movement above described tends towards 
the development of the various powers of the earth and man ; 
towards the creation of local centres ; towards increasing the 
rapidity of the societary circulation ; towards creating a 
counterbalance to the attractions of the political or trading 
capital ; and, therefore, towards concentration. The more 
perfect the balance of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, 
the greater must be the steadiness of the societary movement, 
and the greater the tendency towards the perfect establish- 
ment of human freedom. Are there, then, no proper limits 



OF COMMERCE. 511 

to tbe sphere of action of those who guide and direct the 
commerce of the State ? There are — their whole duly being 
found in the removal of the obstacles to perfect combination. 
Going beyond that point, government leaves its proper spliere, 
doing mischief in place of good 

§ 3. Among the men who have, at any time, been placed 
in charge of the helm of State, Colbert stands pre-eminent 
for his appreciation of the fact, that the headship of a nation 
brought with it a necessity for the performance of great and 
important duties — all of them looking to the removal of the 
obstacles to combination. Every movement in that direction, 
as he clearly saw, tended towards developing the individual 
faculties of his countrymen, and towards fitting them for 
more extended intercourse with distant people. Differing 
widely from modern teachers, he regarded wealth only as a 
means, the end being found in the gradual substitution of the 
real man for the mere human animal bequeathed to him by 
his predecessors. That he erred occasionally in regard to the 
measures required for enabling hitu to attain the desired end, 
as when he prohibited the export of artisans and corn, is not 
extraordinary, "seeing how little progress since his time has 
been made towards harmony among the teachers of social 
science, whether as regards the facts themselves, or the de- 
ductions they may be held to warrant. 

Leaving Colbert we may now pass to Hume, in whose 
opinion, no country need fear any difficulty in commanding 
the services of the precious metals, provided only that it 
"preserved with care its people and its manufactures" — so 
exercising its power of co-ordination as to facilitate the near 
approach of producers and consumers. Of all economists, 
none appears more fully to have appreciated " the superior 
skill and industry that become developed in countries whose 
power of conversion have fitted them for obtaining the start 
of others in trade." No one has ever shown himself more 
Sfnsil)le of the fact, that in the absence of manufactures land 
and labor must be low in price, and that, in countries so 
situated, the difficulty of regaining the ground they had lost, 
or gaining that which had not been previously obtained, was 
a great and growing one. 

No economist, more than Adam Smith, has manifested his 
admiration of local centres of action in which agriculture 
and manufactures were happily combined. In his view, th« 
course of his countrymen in seeking to centralize the ma- 



512 CHAPTER XLIV. § 3. 

chinery of manufactures for the world, and thus converting 
themselves into a "nation of shopkeepers," while compelling 
all other nations to send abroad rude produce, was not onl}' 
an act of folly, but also "a manifest violation of the most 
sacred rights of mankind" — such a violation as, had he lived 
in any other country, would have led him to urge protective 
action. His approval of the navigation laws furnishes evi- 
dence of his disbelief in the propriety of an indiscriminate ap- 
plication of the idea implied by the expression, laiaser faire. 

Protection, as regarded those productions which were neces- 
sary for self-defence, he regarded as equally justifiable with 
that afforded by tiie navigation laws. The articles protected 
might, after a time, as he thought, " be made as cheap, or 
cheaper, than in the foreign country." He did not, it is true, 
regard it as certain that, " the sum total" of the revenue of a 
country could be thereby increased, yet he elsewhere proved 
it to be so, when he showed that the saving of the cost of 
transportation must enure to the farmer, giving value to both 
labor and land. Adding to this the commodities that before 
had been imported, his gain was doubled, even where not 
quadrupled. 

Much more fully thau Dr. Smith did Mr. J. B, Say appre- 
ciate the necessity for action on the part of the co-ordinating 
power, circumstances, in his opinion, greatly modifying the 
proposition that each and every individual is capable of de- 
termining the most advantageous mode of employing his cap- 
ital and labor. Protection, granted with a view to promote 
the profitable application of labor and capital, might, as he 
thought, become productive of universal benefit. New 
modes of employment, though destined, to result in great 
advantage when the workmen should have been trained and 
the preliminary obstacles surmounted, were liable, without 
the aid of government, to cause heavy loss to the under- 
taker — a result that, as he thought, was carefully to be 
avoided. 

Following in the footsteps of his distinguished predecessor. 
Mous. Blanqui tells his readers, that "experience has already 
taught us, that a people ought never to deliver over to the 
chances of foreign trade the fate of its manufactures." 

Turning now to one of the most eminent of recent econ- 
omists, M. Rossi, we find him utterly disclaiming the idea of 
non-intervention by the co-ordinating power — t£l]ing his 
readers, that it was undeniable that there were exceptions to 
the free-trade principle, exceptions the reason of which 



OP COMMERCE. 513 

were to be found in the science itself, while the foundation 
of others was to be found in moral and political considera- 
tions. "The sacrifice of to-day," as he further said, "might 
be followed bv advantages that would more than compensate 
for it." 

" Ital3',"says M. Moreau de Jonnes, " profited of her liberty 
to create, in her free cities, the first maiu]factures that were 
to be found in Christendom, thereby securing to herself a 
monopoly of the production of silks and woollens, and of arms. 
Our wars having led our armies into that beautiful country, 
and we having thus become initiated into the secret of its 
prosperity, efforts were made at transplanting into our prov- 
inces the culture of the mulberry, the raising of silk, and the 
silk manufacture. All progress in this direction ceased, how- 
ever, under the later sovereigns of the Valois family, the lux- 
uries of France having been then exclusively supplied by the 
cities of Italy and the Netherlands. Manufacturing industry 
was, therefore, compelled to wait the appearance of Sully and 
Henry IV., to obtain from them the royal protection, and the 
aid so much required." 

Mr. J. S. Mill is of opinion that "the superiority of one 
country over another, in a branch of production, often arises 
only from having begun it sooner. It cannot," as he says, " be 
expected that individuals should at their own risk, or rather 
to their certain loss, introduce a new manufacture, and bear 
the burthen of carrying it on until the producers have been 
educated up to the level of those with whom the processes 
have become traditional. A protecting duty, continued for a 
reasonable time, will sometimes be the least inconvenient 
mode in which a country can tax itself for the support of 
such an experiment." 

Though generally favorable to the system commonly de- 
nominated "free trade," not one of these writers, as here is 
shown, has failed to see the necessity for the exercise in the 
social body, of that same co-ordinating and regulating power 
we see to be so constantly exercised in the physical man who 
furnishes, within himself, the type of the various societies of 
the world. 

M. Chevalier holds that every nation owes it to itself to 
seek the establishment of diversification in the pursuits of ita 
people, as Germany and England have already done in regard 
to cottons and woollens, and as France herself has done in 
reference to so many and so widely-different kinds of manu- 
facturing industry. Within these limits, he holds that "it ia 



514 CHAPTER XLIV. § 3. 

not an abuse of power on the part of the Government ; on the 
contrary, it is the accomplishment of a positive duly so to act 
at each epoch in the progress of a nation, as to favor the taking 
possession of all the branches of industry whose acquisition is 
authorized hy the nature of things. Governn)ents are, in 
effect, the personification of nations, and it is required that 
they should exercise their influence in the direction indicated 
by the general interest, properly studied, and fully appreciated. 
Therefore," he continues, "I shall carefully avoid censuring 
Colbert in France, or Cromwell in England, for the effort to 
establish in his own country a powerful commercial marine." 

Nothing could be more accurate than this view of the 
duties of the government, yet is its author hostile to the 
maintenance of protection in France — assuring, as he since 
has done, the agricultural population of that country, that 
"raw materials, such as wool, and agriculture itself, incom- 
parably the first of French pursuits, both by the number of 
persons engaged in it, and by the many interests dependent 
upon it, have ceased to enjoy the advantages of protection 
while bearing the charges of it wherever it seeks to obtain 
improved machinery of cultivation, and other articles of 
common use." 

Is it so ? Has French agriculture ceased to be protected ? 
If it has then should protection be abandoned ? To enable 
us to answer this question we must begin by inquiring why 
is protection needed ? Because, according to M. Chevalier 
himself, it promotes the conversion of raw materials into 
finished products. In what manner, however, does that 
profit the farmer ? Is it not by the approximation of the 
consumer to the producer ? Is it not by diminishing the tax 
of transportation ? The farmers of France now realize the 
advantages of protection in the fact that of the 2,000,000,000 
francs of French products annually sent to distant countries, 
at least two-thirds are products of the farm that never could 
reach those countries unless they had been compressed to- 
gether in accordance with the sound advice of the author of 
the Wealth of 'Nations. Such being the case, it is certainly 
a great mistake to say that French agriculture has ceased to 
be protected. All the protection thai agriculture anywhere 
requires is that of having the market brought to its door, 
and thus enabling it to maintain the powers of the land while 
freeing itself from the one great tax of transportation, com- 
pared with which all other taxes sink into insigni.ficanGe. 

Civilized communities follow the advice of Adam Smith in 



OF COMMERCE. 515 

exporting wool and corn in the form of clotli, at little cost 
for transportation. France, in 1856, exported silks and 
cloths, clothing, paper, and articles of furniture, to the extent 
of $300,000,000; and yet the total weight was short of 
50,000 tons, requiring for its transport but fifty ships of 
moderate size. 

Semi-barliarous countries, on the contrary, export their 
products in their rudest state, at heavy cost. India sends 
tiie constituents of cloth — cotton, rice, and indigo — to ex- 
change, in distant markets, for cloth itself. Brazil sends 
raw sugar across the ocean to exchange for that which has 
been refined. America sends wheat and Indian corn, pork 
and flour, cotton and rice, fish, lumber, and naval stores, to 
be exchanged for knives and forks, silks and cottons, paper 
and China-ware. The total value of these commodities ex- 
ported in 1856 — high as were then the prices — was only 
$230,000,000 ; and yet the ships engaged in the work o*f 
transport were of the capacity of 6,872,253 tons. 

In the movement of all this property, there is great ex- 
pense for transportation. Who pays it ? Ask the farmer of 
Iowa, and he will answer that he sells for fifteen cents a 
bushel of corn that, when received in Manchester, com- 
mands a dollar, giving to the support of railroads and canals, 
ships and sailors, brokers and traders, no less than eiqhty' 
Jive per cent, of the intrinsic value of his products. Ask 
him once again, and he will repiy that while his bushel of 
corn will command, in Manchester, eighteen or twenty yards 
of cotton cloth, he is obliged to content himself with little 
more tiian a single yard, eighty-five per cent, of the clothing- 
power of his corn having been taken, on the road, as his con- 
tribution towards the tax imposed upon the country for the 
maintenance of the machinery of that "free trade" which 
modern economists so much admire. 

M. Chevalier is anxious for freedom of trade. Who has it 
— the French farmer, or the American farmer and planter? 
The one sends his food, in the form of silks and cottons, to 
every part of the civilized world, doing this directly and 
without the intervention of any other people. The other, 
having only raw products to sell, must go to those counlrifS 
and those only, which have machinery of conversion — being 
as much enslaved as is the other free. Why this difference ? 
Because France is a disciple of Colbert, while the American 
people foUcnv the advice of men who teach that trade is to 
be promoted l)y cheaprMiing labor and the raw products of 



516 CHAPTER XLIV. § 3 

the earth, finding the result in a doctrine of over-population, 
in virtue of which slavery is the ultimate portion assigned 
by the Creator to the laborers of the world. In the one, the 
prices of rude products and finished commodities gradually 
approximate, agriculture becomes a science, land grows in 
value, and becomes divided. In the other, those prices be- 
come more widely separated, agriculture continues in its 
rudest state, and land, abandoned by the small proprietors, 
becomes more consolidated from year to year. The one is 
daily furnishing evidence that protection to the people is, in 
fact, protection to the government itself, the other, meanwhile, 
proving that a government which refuses to perform the duty 
of protection must become daily weaker and less respected. 

Look where we may, we shall find evidence that the 
necessity for the application of intelligence to the co-ordina- 
tion of the movements of the various members of the societary 
body grows with the growth of wealth and numbers, and 
that the more wisely it is exercised the greater is the growth 
of production, the more rapid is the progress of accumula- 
tion, the more equitable is the distribution, the longer is the 
duration of life, the more perfect is the development of local 
centres of action, and the greater is the tendency towards 
the creation of a sound morality, and towards the develop- 
ment of the real man, master of nature and of himself. 

We read in the Arabian Nights of a ship that had been 
carried by the current so near to a rock of adamant, that — 
her bolts being all drawn out — she fell to pieces. Such pre- 
cisely muiit become the position of every community in 
which industrial development has still to be accomplished, 
and yet adopts the doctrine of laisser /aire, manufactures 
being to the societarj machine exactly what the bolts are to 
the ship. Turkey and Jamaica, Ireland and India, have 
been forced into its adoption, and the result is seen in the 
facts, that the power of co-ordination has ceased to exist ; 
that land and labor are almost valueless ; that the over-popu- 
lation theory finds there its most available material ; and that 
they steadily decline in their power to maintain commerce 
with the world, that decline being attended by corresponding 
increase in the proportions borne by the countries which 
follow in the lead of Colbert and of France. 



OF COMMERCE. 517 

CHAPTER XLY. 

OF COMMERCE — CONTINUED. 

IV. — Of the Commerce of the World. 

\ 1. Coiiiiiu ICO of tlio World. In societie?, as in tbe individual man, the powrr to nt-wx- 
taiii connneico is in the ratio of development — that becoming more complete us tlie 
power of co-ordination is more discreetly exercised. 

g 2. Organized binlies grow from within. Brute matter increases only by aggiegatiou. 
The more perfect the development of human faculties, the higher the societary organi- 
zation, and the more complete the self-dependence. 

g 3. P<iwer for maintaining exterior commerce grows as the community becomes more 
self-dependent. 

J 4. Limited internal commerce of the States of the American Union. Slow growth of the 
power to maintain foreign commerce. 

J 5. Ultimate object of all production found in the real man. The higher his development, 
the greater the tendency towards the substitution of the commerce of taste and intellect, 
for that which requires for its maintenance mere brute force. Peace and harmony come 
with the proper e.xercise of the power of co-ordination. Subordination of all the parts 
becomes more complete as the societary organization becomes more perfect. 

§ 1. The man whose faculties remain undeveloped can 
maintain but little commerce. His ideas being few in num- 
ber, he can have little intercourse by means of speech or cor- 
respondence. His power over nature being small, he has 
few commodities to offer in exchange for those he needs. — ■ 
Tiie man of high development, the real man, on the contrary, 
can have commerce with nature in all her forms, animate and 
inanimate. Abounding in ideas, he is fully provided with 
the means of maintaining commerce with his fellow-men, 
giving them out at one moment by means of writing or of 
speech, and absorbing them at another by help of eye or ear. 
Go where he may, he finds occasion for augmenting his stock 
of knowledge — the power of accumulation being here, as 
everywhere, in the direct ratio of the rapidity of circulation. 

So, too, it is with societies, their power to maintain com- 
merce with the world being dependent, altogether, upon the 
development of the various individualities of their members, 
and consequent development of the latent powers of the earth. 
Purely agricultural communities, like the pauper, maintain 
intercourse where they must, those which are highly devel- 
oped doing so, on the contrary, where they will. Look, 
therefore, where we may, we shall find evidence of the truth 
of the great general principle, that the power to maintain 
commerce is in the direct ratio of the perfection of the organ- 
44 



518 CHAPTER XLV. § 3. 

ization — that, in turn, becoming more complete as the power 
of co-ordination is more discreetly exercised. 

§ 2. Organized bodies grow from within, and the greater 
their growth the greater is their power to absorb and digest 
the elements by which they are surrounded, applying tliem 
to their own suppoi't, and afterwards giving them out in the 
ibrm best fitted for general circulation. So it is with men, 
the man of high development seizing upon and digesting 
every new idea, and thus preparing himself for further com- 
merce with those with whom he is connected. So, too, is it 
with societies, those in which trade, manufactures, and agri- 
culture are combined, being always ready to take in the pro- 
ductions, mental or material, of other climes — to combine 
them with their own, and thus give new value to the labors 
of all, whether near or distant. 

Brute matter, on the contrary, grows only from without, 
being susceptible of no increase except by aggregation. — So 
is it with men, those whose mental faculties are torpid being 
dependent upon their powers of appropriation, and the instru- 
ment they use being muscular force alone. So, too, is it with 
purely agricultural communities, constant exhaustion of the 
soil producing a necessity for appropriating other lands, to 
be in their turn exhausted. 

Growing from within, highly organized communities find 
among themselves all the means required for increasing and 
extending their internal conimei'ce, France, and all the coun- 
tries that follow in her lead, making their own roads, creating 
their own local centres, and thus fitting themselves for a pros- 
perous existence, were they even wholly debarred from inter- 
course with the outer world. — Purely agricultural communi- 
ties, on the contrary, like Ireland, India, Portugal, Turkey, 
and Brazil, become from year to year, more dependent upon 
the foreign traders by whom their exchanges are performed. 

So, too, is it with these United States. At times, their 
policy has looked to home development, and then they have 
made roads, without the need of foreign loans. As a rule, 
however, their policy has been adverse to the promotion of 
internal growth — the consequences exhibiting themselves in 
in a growing dependence upon foreign traders, and in a con- 
stant thirst for the annexation of distant lands. 

§ 3. With growth of power for the maintenance of exterior 
commerce, the necessity for it declines, the love of home gPow- 



OF COMMERCE. 519 

ing with the incre.ise of family ties, and with the love of sci- 
ence and of books. So, too, is it with societies, the neces.sity 
for exterior intercourse diminishing as the power for its main- 
tenance is increased by means of diversification of employ- 
ments, and development of the latent powers of their people, 
and of their various soils. 

Seeking proof of this, we may turn to any of the advancing 
communities of the world, past or present. The power of 
Athens grew with the development of internal intercourse. 
It declined as domestic commerce liecame less rapid, and as 
her dependence upon external intercour.se became more com- 
plete. The great development of British external commerce 
followed closely upon the growth of the internal one, the 
latter having owed its existence to a protective system of the 
most stringent character. French external commerce has 
almost quadrupled in the last thirty years, having grown 
from an average of 1,000,000,000 francs, in the ten years 
ending in 1835, to 5.000,000,000, in 185T. 

Germany, as we have seen, increased her demand for cotton 
from less than 400,000 cwts., in 183(i, to almost 1,400,000 in 
1851 — her total imports, in the same period, having risen 
from $105,000,000 to $185,000,000. Sweden, too, followed 
in the same direction — exporting to the extent of more than 
$34,000,000 in 1853, against less than $14,000,000 in 1831. 

Look where we may, we find evidence that the power to 
maintain commerce with the world grows with the growth 
of commerce at home, the power of digestion and assimilation 
being in the direct ratio of organization. 

§ 4. Coming now homewards, we may inquire what it is 
that has given to the more than thirty States the power to 
maintain any internal commerce whatsoever? Is it not a 
consequence of diversity in their modes of employment re- 
sulting from the facts that, while one portion of the country 
is fitted for raising cotton or sugar, others are better suited 
to raising wheat, rice, corn, barley, or grass — that while the 
soil of one is underlaid with coal, that of others is underlaid 
with lead or copper, marl or lime ? That such is the case is 
beyond all doubt. That without difference there can be no 
commerce, is shown by the facts that the cotton planter of 
Carolina makes no exchanges with his fellow-planter of 
(Jeorgia, and that the farmer of Illinois has little intercourse 
with his fellow-farmer of Indiana. Ohio and Indiana are 
both employed in scratching out the soil, and exporting it in 



520 CHAPTER XLV. § 5. 

the form of food. Virginia and Kentucky have the same 
pursuits, selling their soil in the forms of tobacco and of corn. 
So, too, is it throughout the Union, millions of people being 
employed in one part of it in robbing the earth of the con- 
stituents of cotton, while in others other millions are employed 
in plundering the great treasury of nature of the constituent:? 
of wheat and rice, corn and tobacco, and thus destroying, for 
themselves and their successors, the power to maintain any 
commerce whatsoever, foreign or domestic. 

The effect of this exhibits itself in the slow growth of 
American intercourse with foreign nations, as compared with 
that of other countries — the former having done little more 
than keep pace with that of population, while France and 
Germany .have increased at a rate thrice more rapid than the 
growth of numbers. Examine, therefore, where we may, we 
meet with evidence of the great truth, that the power to main- 
tain commerce with the world, whether by individuals or so- 
cieties, grows in the ratio of the growth of their own indi- 
viduality, and consequent independence of the exterior world. 

§ 5. The more that a community finishes its raw products, 
combining its food, its wool, its fuel, and its ores, into cloth 
and iron, the greater, as we see, is its power for exchanges 
with the world. Is that, however, the highest point to which 
commerce may be carried ? It is not ; the ultimate object of 
all human effort being the production of the being known as 
MAN, capable of the highest aspirations. 

The more perfect his development the greater is his desire 
for knowledge, the greater his love for literature and art, the 
greater his desire to see for himself the movements of the 
world, and to learn from those who are capable of affording 
him instruction. Every stage of advance towards diversifi- 
cation of employments, tends, therefore, towards development 
of the human faculties ; towards fitting man for the higher 
enjoyments of life ; towards elevating the character of his 
demands upon other communities — the products of mind, 
taste, and skill, gradually taking the place of those which 
have required for their production little more than mere brute 
force. 

Looking now to those countries which follow in the lead 
of Colbert, we see them all to be engaged in increasing the 
attractions of their respective' local centres— vieing with each 
other in the effort to render their various capitals, large and 
small, attractive of the taste, the intellect, and the wealth of 
the world at large. 



OF COMMERCE. 521 

Turning thence to those which follow in the lead of Eng- 
land, we find the reverse of this — Edinburgh and Dublin, 
Lima and Delhi, Lisbon and Constantinople, diminisiiing in 
their attractions from year to year. So, too, is it in these 
United States, the attractions of local centres steadily de- 
clining, with corresponding growth of absenteeism, and of be- 
lief in the divine origin of human slavery, and in the necessity 
for its continued existence. 

E.xamine where we may, we .=<hall find evidence of the per- 
fect harmon\^ of all real and permanent international interests, 
peace and commerce holding steady pace with that exercise 
of the power of co-ordination which looks to the removal of 
obstacles to combination, and to the creation of local centres 
of action in which trade, manufactures, and agriculture are 
coml}ined in just proportions. Moving in that direction, the 
societary organization of the world at large becomes more 
and more in harmony with the arrangements of the physical 
world, and with the organization of man himself, the subor- 
dination of all the parts becoming more complete as the or- 
ganization becomes more perfect. War and discord, with 
their attendant insubordination, and with the decline of com- 
merce, follow in the train of centralization — that being the 
direction in which we must seek for facts to be adduced in 
proof of the disease of over- population.* 

* .\11 the facts of the last four years might here be cited in proof 
of the perfect accuracy of the views above presented, first published 
by Mr. Carey six years since. 



522 CHAPTER XLVI. § 1. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

OF THE SOCIETARY ORGANIZATION. 

j 1 . Throughout nature, dissimilaiity of the parts is evidence of the perfection of the ■whole, 
Ihe highest organization presenting the most numerous differences. The higher the 
organisation, the more complete the subordination of the parts. The more perfect the 
subordination, the more harmonious and beautiful the interdependence of the parts. 
The more complete that interdependence the greater the individuality of the whole, and 
the more perfect the power of self-direction. 

I 2. Throughout the physical and social world, harmony of movement — interdependence — 
a result of that local attraction which preserves a perfect independence. Subordination 
grows with the growth of the power of self-direction and protection. Harmony a result 
of the equal action of opposing forces. Its growth in all those countiies in which the 
co-ordinating action is in accordance with the principles of Social Science. 

§ 1. Throughout nature, the rank and perfection of organ- 
isms are in direct proportion to the number and dissimilarity 
of the parts, proof of this being found at every step from the 
simplest composition of inorganic matter up to the structure 
of MAN, in whom are reproduced all the forms and faculties 
of being over which, for the service of his needs, it has been 
given him to rule. This law not only marks the relative 
rank of classes of creatures, but it serves also to measure the 
respective positions of the individuals of whom the several 
classes are composed, the nearest approach to perfection being 
found in those men in whom the distinctive human qualities 
are found most developed. Following out the rule, those 
communities of men in which are found the largest variety 
of differences, and the most effective development of them 
into action, should present the nearest approach to perfection 
of societary organization. Seeking such communities we fiiid 
them where the demands for human powers are most diversi 
fied, and where men are enabled most to combine their eff'orts, 
rapid societary motion there stimulating into activity all the 
power that, thus far, had remained latent, and enabling their 
members to pass from the brutifying labors of transportation, 
through those of the workshop, to those of a scientific agri- 
culture. 

Subordination of specialities to a general intention — diver- 
sity of functions or uses, so combined as to produce a perfect 
harmony of related action — is at once the mark and test of 
organization. The individual man is healthy and efficient 
within himself, in proportion to the vigor and exactness with 



OF THE SOCIETARY ORGANIZATION. 523 

whicl; the bodily instruments of his will obey the governing 
brain — those charged with carrying on his automatic life 
meanwhile furnishing full support to his voluntary powers. 
Absolute subordination in the parts of a machine to the 
moving force is the constant characteristic of inanimate or- 
ganizations. In a watch, steam-engine, mill, or ship, all the 
parts are in prompt and complete obedience, their perfection 
being measured by the exactness of their subordination. 

In societary organizations w^e have the same law modified, 
but not repealed, by the liberty which accompanies human 
life — bringing with it responsibility to both God and man. 
The crew of a ship, the hands employed in a factory, the 
thousands of whom an army is composed, are organized and 
subordinated that they may accomplish the work for whose 
performance they have been brought together. So, too, is it 
in civil government, subordination of the subjects being es- 
sential to the well-being and the progress of the community, 
and to those very individual liberties which it limits, as well 
as to the national order for whose security it has been designed. 

Throughout nature, the more perfect the organization and 
the more ab.solute the subordination, the more harmonious 
and beautiful is the interdependence of the parts. A rock, or 
a lump of coal being broken, every portion remains as perfect 
as it had been before. Dividing a polvpus into a dozen parts, 
the vital force is found so existing in each and all, that each 
becomes again a perfect animal Doing the same b}^ man, 
he speedily passes into dust. So, too, is it with societies, 
the mutuality of interdependence growing with ever\' stage 
of progress, from that simplest of societary forms presented to 
view in the history of Crusoe and his Friday, towards that 
liigh state of organization in which thousands combine to sat- 
isfy the public want for a single newspaper, hundreds of 
thousands then profiting l)y its perusal at a cost so small as 
scarcely to admit of calculation. 

Throughout nature, the more complete the subordination 
and the more perfect the interdependence of the parts, the 
greater is the individuality of the whole, and the more abso- 
lute the power of self-direction. The rock is chained to earth, 
obeying but a single force ; the bird, at will, rises in the air, 
or skims across the lake. The dog obeys his master; the 
master has power to direct himself and nature too. The man 
in perfect health determines for himself if he will go abroad 
or stay at home, the invalid, on the contrary, being compelled 
to keep his cliaml)er. So, too, with society, its power for 



524 CHAPTER XL VI. § 2. 

self-direction growing with the growth of interdependence 
among its various parts, and the latter becoming developed 
as the organization becomes more perfect, and the subordina- 
tion more complete. 

Organization and subordination, association and individu- 
ality, responsibility and freedom, travel thus together through- 
out the social world. 

§ 2. The more thorough the development of differences 
among men, and the more perfect the power of self-direction, 
the more complete becomes their interdependence ; the greater 
is the tendency towards harmony in the relations of society, 
and mutual respect on the part of both laborer and capitalist; 
the larger is the production ; the more rapid is the circulation ; 
the more equitable the distribution ; the more absolute the 
subordination ; and the greater the tendency towards freedom 
for all mankind. The less, however, is the tendency towards 
the production of those " positive checks" to population relied 
upon by Mr. Malthus, and known to the world as war, pesti- 
lence, and famine. 

That this is so, must be obvious to all who see in the indi- 
vidual man the type of that grand man to which we apply 
the term society — and who appreciate the fact that this great 
law governs matter in all its forms, whether in that of systems 
of mountains, or communities of men. Throughout our solar 
system, harmony of movement — interdependence — is a result 
of that local attraction which preserves a perfect independ- 
ence. So, too, is it with nations, the tendency towards peace 
and harmony among them being in the ratio of their interde- 
pendence — that, in its turn, being in the direct ratio of their 
independence. As among individuals the power of associa- 
tion grows with the development of individuality, and as this 
latter grows with the growth of the habit of combination, so 
does the tendency towards peaceful action among communi- 
ties grow with the growth of local centres, and with that of 
self-dependence — subordination to the lawsof right and justice 
among nations growing with the growth of the power of self- 
direction and protection. Here, as everywhere throughout 
nature, action and re-action are equal and contrary, harmony 
being the result of the perfect balance of these opposing forces. 

The reverse of this, however, is what we are told in Eng- 
lish books. From them we learn that universal peace is to 
^ollow in the train of a system that seeks a centralization of 
;he manufacturing power of the world, thereby depriving the 



OF THE SOOIETARY ORGANIZATION. 525 

various nations of all ability to develop the latent powers of 
either earth or man — limiting them to the work of scratching 
out the soil and selling it in distant markets, and thus pre- 
venting the growth of agriculture. Under that system, in- 
terdependence in the bosom of the society dies away, while 
dependence grows, with corresponding tendency to the de- 
velopment of insubordination, and towards the production of 
the "positive checks" of the Malthusian system. The effort 
now being made towards the establishment of trading cen- 
tralization — that policy which is advocated by the present 
British school — tends to the general jjroduction of a state of 
things similar to that exhibited in France in the days of the 
Jacquerie ; in Germany, in those of John of Leyden and his 
Anabaptists; in England, in those of Henry VIII., when 
72,000 criminals were hanged in a single reign ; in Scotland, 
in the days of Fletcher; in Ireland, throughout the present 
century; and in India, at the present hour; that state of 
things in which insubordination comes as the companion of a 
division of society into two great forces, the very rich and the 
very poor, the master and the slave. Hence it is that it has 
given rise to the doctrine of over-population, which is simply 
that of slavery, anarchy, and societary ruin, as the ultimate 
condition of mankind — that, too, coming as a consequence of 
laws emanating from an all-wise and all-powerful Being, who 
could, if He would, have instituted laws in virtue of which 
freedom, order, peace, and happiness would have been their 
lot ! 

That these latter have been instituted, that the scheme of 
creation is not a failure, that it is marred by no such errors 
as have been indicated by Mr. Malthus, is proved by all the 
facts presented for consideration by the advancing communi- 
ties of the world — the habit of peace, among both individuals 
and nations, growing with the growth of numbers and the in- 
crease in the power of self-direction. The more perfect that 
power, the greater is the tendency towards progress, the 
wretched slave to nature gradually yielding |)laee to the master 
OF NATURE, in wliom the feeling of responsibility to his family, 
his country, his Creator, and himself, grows with the growth 
of power to guide and direct the vast and various forces placed 
at his command. This last grows in all those countries in 
which the societary energies, represented by their co-ordi- 
nating centres, are most directed to the reuKjval of obstacles 
to association and combination, and therefore most in accord- 
ance with those natural laws which con.stitute the Social 
Science, 



526 CHAl-TER XL VII. § 1. 



CHAPTER XLYIL 

OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 

§ 1. Idnntity of the physical and social laws. Harmony the universal result of the un- 
restrained operation of natural laws. Identity of individual and i\ational interests 
throughout the world. 

g 2. Agriculture the last developed of the pursuits of man. The laborer in the field the 
last that is emancipated. Minute machinery, by means of which nature performs her 
greatest operations, the last Jhat is observed. Advantages of peace and harmony, last 
to meet their full appreciation. Science the interpreter of nature. Having recorded 
her processes it accepts them as true. Social Science treats of the laws in virtue of 
which man is enabled to obtain power over nature and over himself. Careful study of 
those laws would enable all, from the farmer and the laborer to the sovereign and the 
statesman, to see that advantage would result from full obedience to the great precept 
which reqim-es that men should do by others as they would that others should do by 
them. 

§ I. The simple laws which govern matter in all its forms 
and which are common to physical and social science may 
now briefly thus be stated : 

All particles of matter gravitate towards each other, the 
attraction being in the direct ratio of the mass and the inverse 
one of the distance : 

All matter is subjected to the action of the centripetal and 
the centrifugal forces, the one tending to the production of 
local centres of action, the other to the destruction of such 
centres and the production of a great central mass, obedient 
to but a single law : 

The more perfect the balance of these opposing forces the 
more uniform and steady is the movement of the various 
bodies, and the more harmonious the action of the system in 
which they are embraced : 

The more intense the action of those forces the more I'apid 
is the motion, and the greater the power. 

Such are the laws which govern masses and atoms, but 
^ there are other laws in virtue of which masses are reduced to 
atoms, ready to enter into chemical combination with each 
other, the tendency towards combination existing in the direct 
ratio of the perfect individualization of the particles thereby 
obtained. These laws are — 

That heat is a cause of motion and force, motion being, in 
its turn, a cause of heat and force : 

That the more heat and motion produced the greater is the 
tendency towards acceleration in the motion and the force : 

That the more the heat the greater is the tendency towards 



OF SOCIAL SCIKNCE. 527 

decomposition of masses; and individualization of tiie particles 
of which tlu'V are composed, thus fitting them for entering 
into chemical combination with'each other: 

That the greater the tendenc}^ towards individualization 
the more instant are the combinations, and the greater the 
force obtained : 

That the more rapid the motion the greater the tendency 
of matter to rise in the scale of form, passing from the rude 
forms which characterize the inorganic world, through those 
of the vegetable and animal world, and ending in man : 

That at every stage of progress there is an extension of the 
range of law to which matter is subjected, accompanied by 
an increase of the power of self-direction, subordination and 
freedom keeping steady pace with organization : 

That last in the progress of development comes man, the 
being to whom has been given the power to guide and direct 
himself, and nature too, his subjection to all the laws above 
referred to being the most complete. 

Studying him, we find — 
■ That association with his fellow-man is a necessity of his 
existence, that being the condition upon which, alone, those 
faculties by whose possession he is distinguished from the 
beast of the field, can be developed : 

That his powers are very various, and that the combina- 
tions of which they are susceptible are infinite in number, 
there being, throughout the world, no two persons who are 
entirely alike : 

That the development of those infinitel}' various faculties 
is wholly dependent upon the power of association and com- 
bination : 

That association, in its turn, is dependent upon the develop- 
ment of individuality : 

That individuality is developed in the ratio of the diversity 
of the modes of employment, and consequent diversity in the 
demand that is made for the production of human powers : 

That the greater the diversity the greater is man's power 
to control and direct the great forces of nature, the larger is 
the numlier of persons who can draw support from any given 
space, and the more perfect the development of the latent 
powers, of both earth and man : 

That the more perfect that development the more intense 
becomes the heat, the more rapid is the societary motion, and 
the greater the force exerted : 

That the greater that motion and force the more does man 
become subjected to the great law of molecular gravitation — 



528 CHAPTER XLVII. § 2. 

local centres attracting him in one direction, while great 
cities, centres of the world, attract him in the other : 

That the more perfect the balance of these opposing forces 
the greater is the tendency towards the development of local 
individualities, and towards the extension of the power of 
association throughout the interior of communities, with con- 
stant increase in the power of production, in the value and 
freedom of man, in the growth of capital, in the equity of dis- 
tribution, and in the tendency towards harmony and peace : 

That the law thus established in reference to the members 
of a community is equally operative among the communities 
themselves, the tendency towards peace and harmony among 
States being in the direct ratio of the development of their 
respective individualities, and their power of self-protection : 

That there is, therefore, a perfect harmony of individual 
and international interests, and that, leaving out of view all 
higher considerations, nations and individuals would find it 
to their advantage to yield obedience to the great command, 
which requires that men should do unto others as they would 
that others should do unto them, that being the road in which 
they must travel if they would secure to themselves the most 
perfect individuality and freedom, the highest power of asso- 
ciation, the largest command of nature's services, and the 
greatest amount of wealth and happiness. 

§ 2. Of all the pursuits of man, the last developed is a sci- 
entific agriculture — Of all equities, the last established is that 
between land and man — the latter then recognizing the fact, 
that the former is but a lender and not a donor, and that 
punctuality of repayment is the condition upon which, alone, 
the credits will be continued and extended. — Of all people, 
the last emancipated are the laborers in the field. — Of all 
knowledge, the last obtained is that of the minute machinery 
with which nature works when she seeks to produce her 
greatest effects. — In full accordance with this it is, therefore, 
that a full appreciation of the advantages of harmony, peace, 
and respect for our neighbor's rights — and of the nece.ssily 
for a proper exercise of the power of co-ordination on one 
side, accompanied by subordination on the other — comes to 
man only with the growth of that real civilization which is, 
or should be, attendant upon increase in the number of per- 
sons occupying a given space, that increase of numbers being 
required for facilitating combination, and thus developing the 
vjrious human powers. 

Science, as we are told, is the interpreter of nature. It 



OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 529 

reverc:itl3* inquires, what there is, and why it is that such 
tilings are.* It listens that it may know. It seeks for light. 
It knocKs tliat it may obtain communication, its duty being 
performed when it has recorded the processes of nature 
and accepted them as true. That department which is de- 
nominated Social Science treats of the laws which govern 
man in the effort for developing his own powers, and thereby 
obtaining entire control over the great forces of nature, at 
each step gained turning her batteries against herself with a 
view to make her subjugation more complete. The object of 
its teachers is that of indicating what have been the obstacles 
which, thus far, have prevented progress, and the means by 
which they may be diminished, if not removed. Careful 
study of those laws would satisfy — 

Sovereigns, that the maintenance of peace and a studious 
respect for the rights of others, was the surest road to power 
and influence for the communities in whose lead it is their 
fortune to be placed : 

Nations, that every invasion of the rights of others must 
be attended with diminished power to protect their own : 

Legislators, that their duty was limited to the removal 
of obstacles to association among the people with whose 
destinies they were charged, among the most prominent of 
which would be found those resulting from the failure to 
recognize the existence of a perfect harmony of international 
interests : 

Capitalists, that between themselves and those they em- 
ploy, there was a perfect harmony of real and permanent 
interests : 

Farmers, that the road to prosperity for themselves and 
their children was to be found in the adoption of measures 
looking to their emancipation from the oppressive tax of 
transportation, and to the development of the powers of their 
land : 

WoRKiNGMEN, that the more perfect their own respect for 
the rights of property, and the greater the tendency towards 
liarmony and peace, the more rapid must be the growth of 
the productive power, with correspondent increase in their 
lOwn proportion of the larger quantity of commodities pro- 
duced : 

Freemen, that true liberty is inconsistent with interfer- 

* The questions asked by mathematicians are, how much there is, 

and where it may be found. 
45 



530 CHAPTER XLVII. § 2. 

ences with the rights of others, and that in the most perfect 
subordination is to be found the road to harmony, peace, and 
freedom : 

Free-trade advocates, that the more varied the produc- 
tion of a community, the greater must be the commerce in 
the bosom of nations, and the greater their power to maintain 
commerce with the world : 

Advocates or women's rights, that the road towards ele 
vation of the sex lies in the direction of that varied industry 
which makes demand for all the distinctive qualities of 
woman : 

Anti-slavery advocates, that freedom comes with that 
diversification of pursuits which makes demand for all the 
various human powers, and that slavery is the necessary con- 
sequence of a system which, looks to an exclusive agriculture : 

Disciples of Mr. Malthus, that the Creator had provided 
self-adjusting laws, regulating the movement of population ; 
that the treasury of nature was unlimited in extent ; that 
demand produced supply ; and that the power to make 
demand increased with increase in the numbers of mankind : 

Philosophers, that war, pestilence, and famine, were the 
result of man's errors, and not of errors of the Creator — the 
Great Being, to whom we are indebted for existence, having 
instituted no laws tending to thwart the objects of man's 
creation : 

Reformers, that nature always works slowly and gently 
when she desires that man shall profit by her action, and that 
man would do well to follow in the same direction — one of 
the greatest of all precepts being found in these two most 
simple words — feaiina lente : 

Statesmen, that power and responsibility went hand in 
hand together ; that upon their action depended the decision 
of the great question, whether those whose destinies had been 
committed to their care, should go forward in the direction 
of the real man, master over nature and master of himself, or 
decline in that of the mere animal having the form of man, 
treated of in Ricardo-Malthusian books ; and that failure to 
qualify themselves for the proper exercise of the powers con- 
fided to them was a crime, for the effect of which they must 
answer to their fellow-men, and to Him from whom that 
power had been derived : 

Christians, that the foundation of Christianity and of 
Social Science is found in the great precept — All things 

WHATSOEVER YE WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD DO TO YOU, DO YE 
so EVEN TO THEM. 



INDEX 



A bience of machinery in the British West 
Indies, US. 

of regular demand for labor in pure- 
ly agricultural countries, 369. 

Absenteeism, of, 1-17. 

Accumulation, of, 374. 

Adaptabilitj' of the procreative tendency in 
man, to the circumstances under wliich 
he exists, Ul, 447. 

Adulteration of commodities a consequence 
of the separation of consumers from pro- 
ducers, 4(53. 

Advantages to the farmer resulting from 
proximity of the market, 202. 

of co-operation over antagonism, 409. 

Africa. Course of settlement in, 74. Fer- 
tility of soil, and scarcity of population 
in, 484. 

Agriculture. Requires the largest knowl- 
edge, and therefore last in its develop- 
ment, 120. Becomes developed as the 
market is brought nearer to the place of 
production, 139. Absorbs a constantly- 
increasing proportion of the powers of an 
advancing society, 201. Loses its gam- 
bling character as employments become 
diversified, 203. Of France, 54, 3S6. Of 
England, 221. Of Denmark, 232. Of Spain, 
234. Of Russia, 242. Of the United States, 
267. The last and highest of human pur- 
suits, 528. 

Agricultural cor^munities. Little commerce 
of. 171. Causes of the weakness of, 203. 
Grow from without, 518. The more their 
growth the greater their dependence, 518. 

development and decline. How they 

affect the prices of ru<le products, 277. 

Agricultural risks diminish as consumers 
and producei-s approach each other, 140. 

Agriculturist becomes free as employments 
become diversified, 201. Last to be eman- 
cipated, 528. 

, skilled, always making a machine, 

201. 

Alabama. Exhaustion of the soil of, 262. 

Alliance, constant, of war and trade, 117. 
How it exhibits itself in- France, 206; in 
Great Britain, 219 ; in the United States, 
270. 

All matter susceptible of being made useful 
to man, 96. 

All men seek commerce: some men desire to 
perform acts of trade, 113. 

America, the United States of How the 
feeling of responsibility exhibits itself in, 
46. Exhaustion of the soil of; 53, 262. 
Course of settlement in, 60. Abandon- 



ment of the richer soils of, 80. Popula- 
tion of, 255. Extraordinary contrasts pre- 
sented to \iew by, 253. Tendency to jis- 
eociation ii., 254. Tendency to dispersion 
in, 255. EiToneous policy of, 256. Vari- 
able policy of, 257. Decline in the prices 
of the rude products of the soil of. 202, 2ti3. 
Phenomena observed in, directly the re- 
verse of those of the advancing countries 
of Europe, 259. Loss to the farmers of, 
consequent upon the necessity for export- 
ing food, 260. How the laborers of, are 
affected by a rise in the price i"f food, 261. 
Exhaustive effects of cotton cultivation in 
262, 263. Small productive power of tht 
slave States of, 263. Vast amount of 
power placed by nature at the command 
of the people of, 267. Great w.aste oS 
power in, 267. Waste of the constituents 
of food in, 267. Instability and its effects 
in, 268, 269. Phenomena presented by the 
industrial history of, 209. High rate of 
interest in, 269. Policy of, adverse to the 
creation of local centres, 269. Warlike 
tendencies of, 269 Growing discord in, 270. 
Increasing risk of loss by fire in, 271. 
Recklessness in, 271. Speculative and 
gambling spirit in, 272. Frequency and 
rapidity of changes in, 273. Phenomena 
of the last ten years of the history of, 273. 
Declining powei of, 277. Movement of the 
precious metals in, 292. How protection 
affects the supply of those metals in, 292. 
Relations of money and capital in, 302. 
Of banking in, 337. Large proportion 
borne by movable to fixed capital in, 376. 
Plienomena of circulation e.xhibited in, 
388, 389. Continuance of slavery in, a 
consequence of exhaustion of the soil of. 
390. Revenue system of, 420. Compe- 
tition for the sale of labor in, 430. Its 
effect in exaggerating the evils of slavery 
in, 433. Policy of, like that of Great 
Britain, tends to destroy competition for 
the purchase of labor, or labor's pnMlucts, 
432. Proslavery tendencies of both, 4;j5. 
Decline of agriculture in, 472. Enormous 
tax of transportation paid by, 515. Small 
amount of commerce of State with State, 
in, 519. Slow growth of power in, to con- 
tribute to the commerce of the world, 620 
American aborigines. Their little tendency 
towards sexual intercourse, 481. 

policy adverse to the interests of the 



farmers of the world, 264. 
Analogies of natural law universal, 121. 
Analogy of the two-fold life of man to his 

twivfold life in society, 5U6. 
Analysis required in all departments of 

531 



532 



INDEX. 



science, 27. The preparation for synthe- 
sis, 29. 

Auiinal propensities, general predominance 
of the, 452. 

Annihilation of Indian commerce, 167. 

Anti-Christian character of the modern 
political economy, 124. 

Anti-slavery advocates. How they might 
profit by the study of Social Science, 
530. 

Appropriation, dependence of the early set- 
tler npon his powers o^ 108. 

- of, 126. 

Approximation of the prices of raw materials 
and finished products furnishes the essen- 
tial characteristic of civilization, 192. 
Consequent upon increased rapidity of cir- 
culation, 2S7. Grows with the growth of 
power to command the services of the 
precious metals, 292. How it affects the 
power of taxation, 414. 

of man to man attended with diminu- 
tion of the trader's power, 114. 

Association, the first and greatest of the 
needs of man, 37. Indispensable to the 
existence of language, 37. Requires dif- 
ferences, 52. Its slight existence where 
employments are not diversified, 53. Makes 
of man the master of nature, 62. Every 
act of, an act of commerce, 106. Great 
natural tendency towards, in the United 
States, 254. The precious metals furnish 
the great instrument of, 306. How it af- 
fects production, 365. How it affects wages, 
profits, rents, and interest, 395. 

-— , individualitj', development, and pro- 
gress, directly proportionate to each 
other, 46. 

i-. , the power of, grows with the de- 
velopment of individuality, 43. "With in- 
crease of numbers, 60. Its growth in 
Athens, 128. In Spain, 133. Absence of, 
in Sparta, 130. Efforts of France to destroy 
the, 134. Exercise of, prohibited by the 
British Colonial system, 143, 144. 

A-thens, growth of the power of association 
in, 128. Peaceful progress of, 128. Kights 
and duties in, 128. Subsequent tyranny 
of, 128, 129. Splendor and weakness of, 129. 
Decline and fall of, 130. Taxation of, 417. 

Attraction and coxmter-attraction essential 
to the existence of harmony, 44. 

Attractive force of cities, 37. 

Australia, course of settlement in, 74. 



B. 

Bacon. His tree of science, 25. 

Balance of trade, receivable lu the precious 
metals, 292. Necessary to all countries 
which do not th'^mselves produce such 
metals, 294. How it affects the currency, 
358. 

— of force among the vital organs, 451. 

Bank circulation, a nearly constant quan- 
tity, 329. 

contractions, effects of, 316. 

deposits, causes which influence, and 

influence exerted by, 329. 



Bank expansions, effects of, 315. 

monopolies, injurious eflects of, 31 8. 

notes. How they affect the supplj' o1 

the precious metals, 298. How they in- 
crease the utility of money, 318. OrigiK 
of, 321. 

Banker, ancient and modern, always in alli- 
ance with the soldier, 117. 

Bank circulation regTilated by the people, 
338, 339. 

of England, the, 320. Capital and 

circulating notes of, 322. Movement of, 
from 1796 to 1815, 323. Circulation of 323. 
Resumption of payment by, and its effects, 
324. Subsequent expansions and contrac- 
tions of, 325. Saved from bankruptcy by 
the Bank of France, 325. Sir Robert Peel's 
Act for the regulation of, 327. Injurious 
effect of the monopoly of, 328. Circulation 
of, 329. Destruction caused by, in 1841, 
330. Of all monetary institutions, the one 
in whose constitution we find least of the 
elements of stability, 330. 

• of France, the; creation of, 332. Mo- 



nopoly of, 334. Movement of, from 1819 
to 1846, 334. Tendency towards steadiness 
in the circulation of, 334. Instability of 
deposits in, 335. Power of, for controlling 
the societary movement, 336. Heavy tax- 
ation for the maintenance of, 336. 

Banking, English, instability of, 319. How 
it affects the value of money, 320. 

Banks, private, of England. Their numerous 
failures, 344. 

of Holland and Germany, 312. 

of discount, origin and effects of, 



312, 313. 
, American 



Gradual development of 
the system of, 337. Proportion of loans to 
capital in, 338. Tendency towards steadi- 
ness in the movement of, 340. Number 
and capital of 343. Failures of, 344. 
Trivial losses of the people by, 344. Lo- 
calization of capital by means of, 845 
How they are affected by the free trade 
and protective systems, 347, 348. Cause 
of the failures of, 351. 

Barbarism a necessary consequence of the 
absence of the power of association, 42. 

Bastiat, M. Erroneous views of, in regard 
to money, 360. On the law of distribution, 
411. 

Belgium. Course of settlement in, 72. De- 
velopment of individuality in, 44. 

Blanqui, M., on the condition of the French 
people, 214. 

Brain, anatomy and chemistry of the, not 
sufficient definitely to resolve the pro- 
blems of Social Science, 454. 

— ^— and nerves. Special and general 
functions of the, 451. 

British and American banks, comparison of 
the movements of; 343. 

American colonies, prohibitions of 



association in, 143. 

centralization, growth of, 219. 

colonial policy, 470; destructivo 



character of, 471. 
r-. corn-laws. • Failure of their repeal to 

produce the effects predicted, 194. 
peers, rapid extinction of, 454. 



INDEX. 



533 



British policy opposed to the true interests 
of the British people, 190. 

— ^— 8ch(X)l of economical science. Er- 
rors of the, ^'•S. 

. society, growing imperfection of, 195. 

— — system, the, loolss to monopolizing 
tlie machinery of conversion for the world, 
1-tJ. As exhibited in .Tamaica, 146 ; in 
Ireland, 159. fttsed e.iclnsively upon the 
idea of trade, 173. Looks to taxing the 
producers and consumers of the world by 
increasing the tax of transportation, 192. 
Stoppage of the circulation, a necessary 
consequence of, 193. Destructive character 
of. has produced resistance, 205. 

taxes p.iid by the countries that sup- 
ply the raw materials of manufactures, 
420. 

■ war upon the commerce of other 
nations, 1S9. 

West Indies, destruction of life in 

the, 151. 

— — writers on money, 352. 

Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the 
dearest one. tlie governing principle uf the 
soldier and the trader, 113. The motto of 
England, 1T3. 



Cuird on English agriculture, 220, 

Capital. Declines in its power over labor, as 
men are more enabled to associate, 86, 87. 
Charge for the use of, declines as men ob- 
tain power over nature, 88. Charge for, 
embraces no connjensation for nature's 
services, 94. No deficiency of, in Ireland, 
158. How i( ftconomises labor, 199. Is 
consumed, }>v\ not destroyed, 209. Defi- 
nition of, 374. How centralization affects 
its divisiou i'^ito fixed and mijvable, 375. 
Power of fcceumulntiug not a result of 
saving, 3H. Always a result of economy 
of laboi, 376. Every waste of labor a 
waste of, 078. How the policy of Colbert 
tended to promote the growth of, 378. 
Error of the teachings of the Uritish school 
In re(f»rd to the accumulation of, 378. 
.Grow*, with the growth of competition for 
the p'lrchase of labor, 427. 

Capitalist, the. How he mi/;ht profit by the 
study of Social Science, 029. 

Capitalist's quantity inc/eases, as his pro- 
portion diminishes, 30-/, 4<)1. 

Carthage. Wars, monopolies, and fall of, 
130. 

Causes of the decline of nations, 135. 

of the decay o/ Ireland, 162 ; of India, 

Turkey, and Portar^al, 171. 

of the failures o? American banks, 351. 

• of the misery of Iieland, according 



to British teachers, 102. 

Central .\meric.a, course of settlement in, 70. 

Centrivlization. Growth ot, In Italy, Greece, 
and India, 40; in 3piiin,41 ; in France, 41 ; 
in Britain, 42. As ex'albited in Jamaica, 
147. Effects of, in India. 166. Growth 
oi; in the United St?.tes, 252. Increases 
the quantity of moi'.ey required for the 
performance of exchanges, 310. Produces 



competition for the sale of labor, 429. 
How it affects the wages of England, 449. 
The more perfect the steadiness of the 
societiiry movement, the less is the ten- 
dency to, 510. Over-population a conse- 
quence of, 521. 

Centralization and decentralization alike 
necessary, in planets and societies, 38. 
How exhibited, in Europe and America, 
38-42. 

•slavery, and death, travel together, 

in both the moral and material world, 
56, 127. 

Cerebral power of woman abated by the re- 
productive system, 454. 

Changes in the place of matter closely con- 
nected with the movements of the tr.ader, 
118. Small amount of knowledge re- 
quired for effecting, 118. Necessity there- 
for declines, as men are more enabled to 
come together, 118. — (See Tratisporla^ 
tiim.) 

mechanical and chemical, in the form 

of matter. Mure concrete and special 
than changes of place, and require a 
higher degree of knowledge, 118, 174. 
Changes in the societary proportions con- 
sequent upon increase of the power of 
effecting, 175. How human effort is econ- 
omised by, 175. Efforts at monopolizing 
the power to effect such changes, and 
their effects, 178. — (See Conversion, and 
Man It fact ures.) 

vital, in the form of matter. The 

earth alone capable of effecting, 119. 
Power applied to producing, glows, as that 
required for transportation and conver- 
sion declines, 117. Economy of human 
force resulting from the growth of power 
to effect, 177. The greater tliat power, 
the greater the development of the latent 
powers of laud and man, 202. — (See Agri- 
culture.) 

in the societary proportions, 137, 175, 

202. 

Changes in the United States, frequency 
and rapidity of, 273. 

Charge fir the use of money, of the, 300. — 
(See Interest.) 

Chastity of hunter tribes, 453. 

Chatham, Lord, would not permit colonists 
to make a hob-nail for themselves, 144. 

Cheap labor, how that of Ireland has af- 
fected the people of England, 190. 

Cheapening of raw i)roduce tends toward 
slavery for man, 222. 

Cheapness of raw produce in England, in 
the 14th century, 178. 

Chemical and mechanical changes in the 
form of matter, of, 174. 

Chemistry of the population question, 453. 

Chevalier, M., ^14. On Capital and money, 
362. His approval of the protective poii- 
cies of Colbert, Cromwell, and others. 513. 

Chinese opium war, 127. 

Circulation, the societary, how it is affected 
by the precious metals. 284. Development 
of inilividuality stinmlates, 382. llapiil- 
ity of, increases as capital becomes fixed, 
382. How Colbert's policy teniled to- 
wards quickening, 385. How the British 



634 



INDEX. 



systeni tends towards retarding, S86. In- 
creased rapidity of, an evidence of grow- 
ing civilization, 387. Equality promoted 
by rapidity of, 388. Phenomena of, pre- 
sented by the United States, 388. How 
American slavery is affected by sluggish- 
ness of, 390. How it affects the distribu- 
tion of the products of labor, 391. 

Circulation of American banks, 341. 

of the Bank of England, 329. 

France, 334. 

Civil government, oflRce of the, 506. 

designed both for the assist- 
ance and defence of societies, 507. 

Civilization. Of Kome, 131. Its essentia] 
characteristic, 149. How it affects prices, 
285. How affected by division of the land, 
and increase in the rapidity of circulation, 
387. 

Civilized communities export their commo- 
dities in a finished state, 515. 

Cobden, Mr. On Russia, 246. 

Coinage. How it affects the value of the 
precious metals, 281. 

Colbert, advent of, to power, 208. Policy 
of, promotive of commerce, 208. Policy 
of, adopted in Central and Northern Eu- 
rope, 231. How that policy affects the 
growth of capital, 378. His full appre- 
ciation of the duties of a statesman, 511. 
Held wealth to be a means, and not an 
end, 511. 

' and Cromwell, their resistance to 

the monopolies of Holland, 177. 

Colonial and trading system of Spain, 133. 

policy of Greece, Carthage, Spain, 

and France, 143. Of England, 184. 

Colonization upon rich soils, failure of at- 
tempts at, 69. 

commences upon the poorer soils, 

466. Richest lands of the world as yet 
unoccupied, 467. How may thej' be sub- 
dued, 468. Exhaustion of the soil pro- 
duces a necessity for, 470. Of that of 
Greece, 470. Destructive effects of the 
modern system of, 470, 471. Necessity 
for, diminishes as the prices of rude pro- 
ducts and finished commodities approxi- 
mate each other, 475. 

Combination required for development of 
the individual faculties, 43. Essential to 
the growth of wealth, 100, 102. Grecian 
tendencies towards, 128. In England, 369. 

Commerce. Its slight existence in the 
absence of differences among men, 106. 
Obstacles to, in the early periods of so- 
ciety, 109. Gradual development of, 
109. Definition of, 113. Sought by all 
men, 113. Regards trade as an instru- 
ment to be used by man, 114. Tendency 
of, towards decentralization and freedom, 
115. Tends to produce continuity of the 
sooietary motion, 115. Its place in the 
order of development, 120. Every act of 
association an act of, 120. Natural his- 
tory of, 121. Roots and branches of the 
tree of, 121. Decay of, in Spain, conse- 
quent upon the expulsion of the Moors, 
133, Gradual growth of, 138. How af- 
fected by supplies of the precious metals, 
296. Becomes more free as capital bf-- 



comes fixed, and taxation becomes more 
direct, 424. 
Commerce and Society, only different m.odea 
of expressing the same idea, 106. 

and Trade usually regarded as con- 



vertible terms, yet wholly different, 113 
Opposite tendencies of, 268. 

• of the family. Its character, in tho 



various stages of society, 496. 

• of the State, the, 504. Object of so- 



cietary organization, the development of, 
508. How Colbert's policy tended to pro- 
mote, 511. Hume, Smith, and others, 
on the necessity for measures of protec- 
tion, as promotive of, 511. Commerce of 
the world grows with the development 
of, 516. 

of the world. Grows with develop- 
ment of the individualities of nations, 517. 

Commodities, or things, not wealth to those 
who have not the knowledge how to use 
them, 98. 

tend towards those places at which 

they are most utilized, 318. 

Communism in Russia, 244. 

Communities prosper in the ratio of the uti- 
lization of their rude products, 290. 

Comparative circulation of the banks of 
America, France, and England, 340, 341. 

— — physiology of procreation, 453. 

Comparison, inseparably connected with the 
idea of value, 84. 

Competition for nature's services, promotes 
increase in the value of land and labor, 
432. Grows in the protected countries of 
Europe, 432. 

— — — for the purchase of labor. Scarcely 
exists in the early stages of society, 426. 
Grows with tho increase of wealth and 
population, and with growing diversity in 
the demand for human powers, 427. In- 
creases, as the prices of rude products 
and those of finished commodities ap- 
proach each other, 428. 

for the purchase of rude products of 

the earth, 429. . Increases in the pro- 
tected countries of Europe, 431. Freedom 
grows with, 432. 

——— for the sale of labor tends towardrt 
slavery, 428. 

for the sale of female labor in Eng- 
land, and its effects, 493. 

Composition of forces, law of the, 123. 

Comte, M. On the general relation of 
science and art, 508. 

Condition, the, of human progress, 141. 

Conditions upon which, alone, the ijrospo- 
rity of nations can be secured, 189. 

Consolidation of the land, in Italy, 131. In 
Spain, 233. 

■ of English land, and its effects, 221, 

225, 226, 227, 448. 

Constant alliance of war and trade, 117, 
206, 269. 

Consumers and producers come together, 
as employments become diversified, 53. 
Wealth, freedom, power, and happiness, 
grow with their near approach to each 
other, 115. 

Consumption the measure of producti<»n, 
364 



INDEX. 



535 



Contemporaneous maturity of the repro- 
ductive function and tlie intellectual and 
moral powers, 453. 

Continent.al system. How it affected the 
growth of nianuf ictures, 230. Its eff'ects, 
a« exhibited in Russia, 242. 

Continuity of the societary motioUj a test 
of civilization, 108, 370. How it affects 
the growth of wealth, 200. 

Conversion of, 1"4. Requires a knowledge 
of the properties of things, whereas trans- 
portation looks only to their magnitude 
or weight, 174 Economy of nature's gifts 
resulting from bringing the place of, near 
to that of production, 175. Freedom 
grows, as the distance is decreased, 177. 

Co-ordinating office of the nervous system, 
505. 

—— power of the State, the, 304. Re- 
quired for facilitating combinati.in, 505. 
Its action in the social body, similar to 
that of the brain in the physical one, 510. 
Limitation of its sphere of duty, 511. Du- 
ties of, as exhibited by Colbert, 511. 
Hume and others, 512, 513. Necessity for, 
grows with the growth of wealth and 
numbers, 516. 

Co-ordination required in the ratio of deTel- 
opment, 507. 

Coquelin, M., on money, capital, and banks, 
303,304. 

Corporate and municipal governments, of, 
608. 

Corrective, the, of excessive procreation, 453. 

Cost of reproduction the limit of value, S3. 

Cotton, remarkable reduction in the price 
of. 262. 

culture, 262. 

■ growing States. Small production 

of the. .36:5. 

Course of settlement in the United States, 
66; in Mexico, 69; in the West Indies, 70 ; 
in South America, 71; in England, 71; in 
Scotland, 71 ; in France, 72 ; in Belgium 
and Holland, 72; in Scandinavia, 73; in 
Russia and Germany, 73; in Hungary and 
Italy, 73; in Corsica, Sicily and Greece, 
73; in Africa and the Islands of the Pa- 
cific, 74; in India, 74. 

Credit. American policy adverse to the ex- 
istence ot 347. 

Crime in India, 168. 

Cromwell and Colbert, resistance of, to the 
mon 'polies of Holland, 177. 

Cultivation commences with the less fertile 
soils, 59. How improvement in, affects 
the progress of rent, 405. 

Currency, what constitutes the, 314. How 
it is affected by bank expansions and con- 
tractions, .316. Furnishes the most potent 
instrument of taxation, XJQ. A sound 
system of, one of tiie first of societary 
neeils, 342. How affected by the balance 
of trade, 345, 346. 

Custom grows into law, in favor of the la- 
borer, in all the protected countries of 
Etirope, 4;J4. Reverse of this, in free 
tiTide countries, 4;i4. 

Onvier, M. Held that vegetables were the 
natural food of man, 458. 



D. 

Decentralization. Tends towards freedom, 
40. How it affects the quantity of th» 
precious metals required for the perform- 
ance of exchanges, 310. 

Decline of value, a consequence of diminish- 
ed cost of reproduction, 84. 

of Athens, 130. Of Venice, Genoa, 



Pisa, and Holland, 131, 132. Of Spain, 
1-32. Of Spanish cities, 233. 

of all coniniuiiities that follow in the 

train of England, 173. 

Declining power of self-direction, as exhib- 
ited by Great Britain, 195. 

Definite proportions, law of, as applied to 
Social Science, 107. 

Definitions. Of Social Science, 47. Of value, 
87. Of utility, 96. Of wealth, 100. Of 
trade, 113. Of commerce, 113. Of pro- 
duction, 364. Of capital, 374. Summary 
of, 3S0. 

, absence ofj in politico-economical 

science, 33. 

De Fontenay, M. On capital and its effects, 
378. 

De Jonn6s, M. On the effects of protection, 
in France, 513. 

Demand the cause of supply, 464. 

Denmark. Few natura4 advantages of, 231. 
Protective policy of, 232. Economy of 
labor in, 2.32. Division of land, and growth 
of fleedom in, 232. Furnishes no evi- 
dence of the over-population theory, 233. 
Laing on the division of land in, 444. 

Dependence of the English farmer of the 
18th century upon foreign markets, and 
its effects, 182. 

Depopulation drives men back to the poor 
soils, 80. 

and poverty of Turkey, 155. Of Ire- 



land, 159. 

Destruction of human life in the British 
West India Islands, 147, 150. 

Destructive tendencies of the Biitish trad- 
ing system, 204. 

Development begins in the stomach of 
plants, 49. Continued in that of animals, 
50. 

of war and trade, 116. Transporta- 



tion and manufactures later in, 118. 
Agriculture follows manufactures in the 
order of, 119. Commerce latest in its full, 
120. 

Difference indispensable to the existence of 
association, whether in the physical oi 
moral world, 43. 

Differences. Power of combination in- 
creases with the growth of; 43. 

Direct taxation. Tends to supersede th.tt 
which is indirect, in the ratio of the ap- 
proximation of the prices of rude and fin- 
ished products, 421. Tendency thereto, 
grows with increase in the rapidity of the 
societary circulation, 422. Cannot be re- 
sorted to, in purely agricultural coun- 
tries, 423. Power of, an evidence of ad- 
vance in civilization, 424. 

Disappearance of Irish manufactures, uudei 
the Act of Union, 157. 



536 



INDEX. 



Disappearance of the middle classes of 
Spain, 233. 

■ of the small proprietors of England, 

221, 448. 

Disease, the constant companion of early 
settlements, 60. 

Dispersion of men. Bemarkable tendency 
to, in the United States, 255. 

Distinction between animal and vegetable 
life, 50. 

Distribution. Of the law of, 392. Changes 
of, consequent upon the growth of wealth 
and population, 392, 893. Tendency to 
equality, a consequence of the law of, 398. 
Harmony and universality of the law of, 
395. Hume and Smith on the law ol* 398. 
Law of, as exhibited in the changes of 
power to demand rent for the use of land, 
400. Bastiat on the law of, 411, 412. 

Distribution, between the people and the 
State, 413. — (See Taxation, direct and itv- 
direct.) 

Diversification of employments. Indispen- 
sable to the development of individuality, 
43. Has no existence in the countries 
subjected to the British system, 171. 

Diversity in the structure of nerves, corres- 
ponds to variety, of functions, 505. 

Division of the land and its effects, in Den- 
mark, 232 ; in Spain, 234 ; in Germany, 
210; in Sweden, 248; in France, 210, 444. 

Divisions of the organic and relative func- 
tions of the life of man, 505. 

Duration of American life, 451. 

Dutch monopolies of the, 177. 



E. 

Early ages of society, rude character of the 
implements of, 58. 

— settler commences always with the 

poorer soils, 59. 

civilization of Norway, 41. 

colonist, poverty of the, 137. 

■Earth, the. Gives nothing, but is willing 
to lend every thing, 52. Of the occupa- 
tion of the, 58. Constitutes the great 
labor-savings' bank, 120. The only ma- 
chine capable of being improved by use, 
120. That it may be improved, the con- 
sumer and the producer must come to- 
gether, 53. 

Economy of human effort resulting from 
improvement of the machinery of conver- 
sion, 175. 

of labor consequent upon the growth 

of capital, 199. How the precious metals 
tend to produce, 282. Capital grows with 
increased rapidity, with every stage of 
progress towards, 376, 377. How the po- 
licy of Colbert tended to promote, 878. 
Errors of the British school in regard to, 
378. 

— ' — of the earth's products, resulting 
from growth in the power of combina- 
tion, 202. 

Eden treaty, the, and its effects, 210. 

Edict of Nantes, the, revocation of, and its 
effects, 209. 

Kducation, of, in Denmark, 233; in Spain, 



234; in Germany, 498; in Sweden, 498; 
in France, 497 ; in Belgium, 498; in Eng- 
land, 500 ; in the United States, 502. 

Edward III., protective policy of, 178. 

Effect of changes of the societary propor- 
tions, 135, 145. 

Egypt, course of settlement in, 74. 

Emigration from Great Britain, 474. 

Employments. — (See Diversification of.) 

Endless circulation of matter, the, 49. 

England, decline of individuality in, 44. 
Course of settlement in, 71. Colonial sys- 
tem of, 143. Prohibition of association 
among her colonists, 144. Rude charac- 
ter of her commerce, under the Plantagen- 
ets, 178. Resistance to Flemish monopo- 
lies by, 179. Statute of 1347, and its effects 
in, ISO. Navigation laws of, ISO. Depen- 
dence of the farmers of, upon the conti- 
nental markets, and its effects, 181. 
Growth of manufactures in, 182. Mono- 
polistic measures of, 183. Their injurious 
and unchristian character, 183. Colonial 
policy of 184. Origin of the doctrine of 
over-population, 187. Trivial advantage 
derived by, from the destruction of Indian 
commerce and manufactures, 191. Slow 
increase in the value of the land of, 220. 
Exports of, 223. Large import of food 
into, 223. Import of raw materials into, 
223. Number of persons employed in th€ 
manufactures of, 224. Rude character of 
the exports of, 224. Bank of, 319. Heavy 
losses by failures in, 330. Division and 
consolidation of land in, 382. Public debt 
of, 386. Kay, on the social condition of, 
195, 445, 449. Movement of population in, 
449. Infanticide in, 449. Condition of 
woman in, 490. Education in, 499. Pau- 
perism a necessary consequence of the 
system of, 473. 

English children, mere instruments to be- 
used by trade, 501. 

land-holders, decline in the number 



of, 194, 221. 

tenants, ruin of, 221. 



Enlightened self-interest would lead us to 
desire the improvement of our neighbors, 
whether individuals or nations, 172. 

Enormous loss to the farmer, resulting from 
distance of the market, 141. 

Epitome of the aggregate man found in the 
individual man, 506. 

Equality, how increase in the supply of the 
precious metals tends to produce, 304. 
Tendency of the law of distribution to 
produce, 411. 

Equalization of soils, effect of growing ha- 
man power in producing, 469. 

Equities, last developed of the, that be- 
tween man and the earth. 528. 

Erroneous i)olicy of the United States, 256, 
257, 258. 

Every development of force involves a con- 
sumption of matter, 49. 

act of association an act of com- 



merce, 106. 
Exchange, machinery of. Loss resulting 

from the necessity for its use, 101. 
Exchanges, limited number of, it. the early 

periods of society, 280. • 



INDEX. 



537 



Exchanges of service, the precious metals 
the iiistruiueuts provided by nature for 
effecting, 2S1. 

Exliaustinn of the soil a consequence of de- 
pendence upon distant markets, 53, 160, 
158. 

Expulsion of the Spanish Moors, 133. 

of the British and Irish people, 474. 

of the people of the older American 

States, 255. 

Extinction of British peers, 454. Of Roman 
patricians, 455. Of the Bourgeoisie, 455. 



P. 

Failures of American banks, causes of the, 
344. 

Falsification of money in Greece and Italy, 
311 ; in France, 311 ; in Scotland and Eng- 
land, 311. 

Famines, frequency of, in countries slifchtly 
peopled, 54. Constant occurrence of, in 
the early stages of sucietv, 112, 457. Of 
Spain, 133. Of Ireland, 15S. Of early 
England, 404. 

Farmer, taxation of, by the British system, 
225. 

, the, near to market, always making 

a machipe : the one distant from it, al- 
ways destroying one, 139. 

Fecundity, in the inverse ratio of develop- 
ment, 43(5. Giaduated inversely as the 
rank of the animal, 453. 

, immense, of the lower animals, 453. 

First and heaviest tax on land and labor, 139. 

step towards obtaining power over 

nature always the most costly and the 
least productive, 99. 

Fixed capital. Growth of, accompanied by 
increase in the rapidity of the societary 
circulation, 382. 

Flemish monopolies, and their effects, 178. 

Food. Increased pri>duction of, in France, 
211. Small export of, from Russia, 242; 
from the United States, 260. How a ne- 
cessity for the export of, affects prices, 
200. Irregularity in the supplies of, 
which attends the early periods of soci- 
ety, 456. Diminution in the demand for, 
accompanies increase in the supply of, 
458. Economy of, resulting from increase 
in the power of combination, 459. Supply 
of, increases as the consumer and the pro- 
ducer come nearer together, 461. Adulte- 
ration ot, consequent upon the separation 
of cousumeis and producers, 463. In- 
creases in abundance as the prices of rude 
pr<xlucts and finished commodities more 
and more approximate, 463. 
. and population, law of the relative 

increase of, 55, 464. 

Force a result of the consumption of mat- 
ter, 49. 

Formation of society, of the, 106. 

. — of soils, 50. 

Franco. Great increase in the agricultural 
products of, 54. Course of settlement in, 
72. lias abounded in machinery of war 
and trade, while destroying commerce, 
135. Splendor of always followed by ex- 



haustion, 135. !!olonial system of, 143. 
Waste of force iu, 206. Commerce sacrificed 
to trade in, 207. Magnificence and pov- 
erty of, at the date of the advent of Col- 
bert, 2u8. Repeal of the Edict of Nantes, 
and its effects, 208. State of commerce 
under Louis XV., 209. Turgot called to 
the administration of, 209. Eden treaty, 
and its effects on, 209. Revolution fal- 
lowed by diminution in the resti .tints 
upon internal commerce, 210. Increased 
production of food in, 211. Changes in 
the distribution of labor's products in, 
212. Wages of labor in, 212. Extraordi- 
nary contrasts of, 216. Extraordinary 
centralization of, 217. Heavy taxation 
of, 217. Increase in the value of the land 
of, 220. Small e.xport of raw produce by, 
222. Finished character of the expoi ts id', 
221. Tendency of the precious metals to- 
wards, 290. Of banking in, 332. Falsifi- 
cation of the coin in, 332. Assignats of; 
332. Creation of the Bank of, 333. Mon- 
etary centralization of, 333. Stoppages 
of the circulation in, 384. Removal of 
obstacles to the circulation of, 3N5. Its 
effect, as exhibited in the development of 
agriculture, 386. Indirect ta.xes of the 
early periods of, 416. Phenomena of po- 
pulation in, 444. Augmented supplies of 
food to the people of, 461. Condition of 
woman in, 488, 489. Of education in, 
497. How protection benefits the farmers, 
514. 
Freedom, growth of, in Athens, 128. Grows 
with the development of the power of as- 
sociation, 142. Growth of, in France, 210 ; 
in Germany, 241; in Russia, 246. How 
competition for the purchase of labor pro- 
motes the growth of, 428. 

, real, of trade. Who has it, the 



French or the American farmer, 515. 
Freemen. How they might profit by the 

study of Social Science, 530. 
Free trade, as exhibited in Russia, 242. 

How it affects the supply of the precious 

metals to the United States, 294. How it 

affects the currency, 347. How it affects 

the societary movement, 348. 
advocates. How they might profit 

by the study of Social Science, 530. 
French colonies, cause of the failures of, 69, 
Revolution. Initial measures of the. 



—^ and British systems, essential differ- 
ences of the, 218. 

Functions of tlie body. Scale of their su- 
bordination to the cerebral powers, 606. 



G. 



Genoa. Her history one of unceasing warn 
for trade, 1;12. 

Germany. The home of European decen- 
tralization, 41. Growing feeling of re- 
sponsibility in, 46. Course of settlement 
in, 73. Riseand progress of manufactures 
in, 236. Causes which led to the institu- 
tion of Z'tlUVerein, 457. Its gradual for- 
mation, 238. Consequent appn xioiatroa 



INDEX. 



In the prices of 'rude products and finished 
commodities, 238. Combination of the la- 
bors of the iield and the workshop in, 240. 
Division of laud in, 240. Education in, 
349. Respect for rights of prt)perty in, 
241. Contributions of, to the commerce 
of the world, 519. 

Goethe, on the methods of science. 29. On 
difference, as the condition of develop- 
ment, 42, 

Government, designed both for assistance 
and defence of societies, 507. 

, regulative intervention of the brain 

in both the physical and social, 505. 

Gi'adual substitution of the vegetable and 
mineral kingdom for the animal one, 459. 

Gravitation, molecular. Subjection of man 
to the great law of, 37. 

Great Britain. Prohibitions of the export 
of artisans and machinery from, 144. Con- 
dition ot^ as exhibited by Adam Smith, 186. 
Unceasing wars of, 188. Policy of, directly 
opposed to the teachings of Adam Smith, 
189. Efforts of, to destroy the competition 
of other nations, 189. Large capitals the 
great instruments of warfare of, 189. In- 
creasing proportion of labor's products 
absorbed by the traders of, 194. Gulf 
dividing the higher and lower classes of 
society, a constantly widening one, 194. 
Declining power of self-direction in, 195. 
Momentary expediency, the sole rule of 
action of, 196. Account of, with the world 
at large, 224. Growing dependence of, 226. 
Power of, to command the services of the 
great forces of nature, 266. Tendency of 
the precious metals towards, 290. Becomes 
more and more a mere trader, 290. Wo- 
man's condition in, 494. (See England.) 

Great men generally unprolific, 454. 

Greatest effects always the result of the 
most minute causes, whether in the phys- 
ical or social world, 3u0. 

Greece. Tendency towards local association, 
39. Decline ■ of individuality in, 43. 
Course of settlement in, 73. Colonial sys- 
tem of, 143, 470. 

Grecian history, early periods of, 128. 

Growing power of association a cause of 
rejoicing to all, except the trader, 115. 

— independence of Russia, 246. 

Guyot, M. His Earth and Man, extracts 
from, 467. 



H. 

Hamilton, Alexander. Treasury Report of. 
266. 

Harmony of all the real and permanent in- 
terests of man, 192, 409. 

■ of international interests, 427, 521. 

Higher animals, limited fecundity of the, 436. 

History of Science, 27. 

• of Venice exhibits a constant succes- 
sion of wars for trade, 131. 

of the United States in the last ten 

years, 273. 

Holiness of home more fully appreciated, as 
men grow in power to command nature's 
servicea 496. 



Holland. Course of settlement in, 72. VFars, 

trading monopolies, and decline o^ 132. 
Hostilities of classes in Great Britain, 194. 
How war and trade feed each other, 127. 
the farmer profits by diversification in 

the demands for labor, 202. 
approximation in the prices of rude 

products and finished commodities affects 

the value of man, 396. 
the growing power of association affects 

the relations of the family, 496. 
exercise of the power of co-ordinatiim 

facilitates association and combination, 

508. 
trade, politics, and science, affect pro- 
creation, 455. 
Human energies developed in the ratio of 

the growth of differences among men, 391. 
race. Solidarity of the, 504. 



Hume, David, on mouey and price, 295, 296. 
On the necessity for protecting manufac- 
tures, 355, 511. 

Joseph, on the necessity for destroy- 



ing the manufactures of other nations. 237. 

Hungary. Course of settlement in, 73. , 

Hunter state, little power of association, 
and slow increase of numbers, in the, 58. 

tribes, chastity and infertility of the, 

452. 

Iluskisson, Mr., held, that " to enable capi- 
tal to obtain a fair remuneration, labor 
must be kept down," 192. 



I. 



Identity of the physical and social laws, 37, 

38, 107, 304, 523, 526. 
Implements, rude character of, in the early 

stages of society, 58. 
Increase in the numbers of mankind, of, 48. 
of numbers always in the inverse 



ratio of development, 55. 

India. Course of settlement in, 74. How 
wiirs are gotten up in, 127. Early ten- 
dency towards association in, and local 
centres of, IPS. Manufactures and com- 
merce of, 164. Growth of centralization 
in, and taxes of, under the British rule, 164. 
Sacrifice of the small proprietors, and sub- 
sequent ruin of the Zemindars of, 165. 
Oppressive character of the revenue sys- 
tem of, ] 66. Salt tax of, 166. Centraliza- 
tion and absenteeism of, 166. Disappear- 
ance of manufacturing cities, and anni- 
hilation of the commerce of, 167. Waste 
of labor in, 167. Exhaustion of the soil 
of, 168. Trivial value of land in, 169. 
Enormous taxation of, 191. 

Indirect taxes. Causes of the necessity for, 
in the eai-ly stages of society, 415. Tend 
to disappear, as property becomes fixed, 
416. Tend to increase, as trade acquires 
power, and land declines in value, 418. 
Must bo maintained in all purely agricul- 
tural countries, 423. 

Individuality, one of the distinctive qualities 
of man, 42. Conditions of its development, 
42. Essential to the existence of respon- 
sibility, 45. Growth of, in Greece, Italy, 
the Netherlands, Spain, and Irelaud, ^ 



INDEX. 



539 



Doclino of, in France, In the Middle Ages, 
44. How it exhibits itself in the United 
States, 44. Grovs with the growth of the 
power of combination, 44. Absence of in 
the hunter and shepherd states, 68. Be- 
comes more developed as capital becomes 
fixed, 388. Grows with the growth of in- 
terdependence, .523. 

Inilivisibility of science, 29. 

Inequality of conditions, in the early stages 
of society. 111. Augments, with" decline 
in the power to command the services nf 
the jirecions metals, 304. Growth of, in 
Great Britain, 190, 419. 

Infmt, nntritive functions of the, indepen- 
dent of tlie brain, 50(i. 

• societies. Their independence of civil 

governments, 506. 

Infanticide in England. 449. 

Instaliilitv in the societary movement of the 
United States, 269, 294. 

Instincts. Their independence of, and sub- 
jection to, the rational powers, 606. 

Instrument of association known as money, 
of the. 280. 

Interdependence grows with the growth of 
independence, 623. Individuality devel- 
oped with the growth of, 523. 

Interest. Causes of high rate of, in the 
United States, 269, 295. IIow affected by 
supplies of the precious metals, 2'.i6. 
Causes of decline in the rate of, 300. Al- 
ways high when money is scarce, 301. 
Stiength of communities increases, as the 
rate of declines, 305. Of profits, wages, 
and, 392. Hume and Mr. J. S. Mill, on the 
causes which determine the rate of, 397. 

Internal commerce of Germany, 2.j9. 

Involuntary emigiation from the British 
Islands, 474. 

Ireland. Prohibition of association in, 143, 
144. Manufactures of, at the date of the 
Revolution of lfiS8, ITid. Kestraints upon 
the manufactures and commerce of, 157. 
Limitation of the people of, to the pro- 
duction of raw materials, 157. Indepen- 
dent legislation, and prote(^tion, of 1783, 
157. Centralization re-established by the 
Act of Union. 1.57. Consequent disappear- 
ance of manufactures, 157. Necessity for 
obtaining land, at any rent, 157. Waste 
of labor in, and wretchedness of the people 
of, 1.58. No deficiency of capital in, 168. 
Exhaustion of the soil of, 1.59. Nothing 
but employment needed in, 1.59. Famines 
and poor laws of 169. Natural advan- 
tages of, 161. IIow over-popnlation is 
produced in, 162. Wages of, .■!(i6. Waste 
of ca]>ital in, .366. No competition f )r the 
purchase of labor in. 4.30. Gradual disap- 
pearance of the real mav fiom, 446. Mc- 
Cnllocli (in the |iopulation question in. 447. 

Isluiils of the Pacific. Course of settlement 

_ in the. 74. 

i'solation, the real man cannot exist in a. 
state of, .37. 

Ttaiy. Course of settlement in, 73. Aban- 
donment of the richer soils of, 79. Con- 
SDlidntion of the land ofj 131. 



J. 

Jamaica. Prohibition of diversification of 
employments in, 146. Slave trade of, 14C. 
Small proportion of lal)or's products ro- 
ceived by the planters of, 146. Destruction 
of human life in, 147. Causes of the ab- 
senteeism of, 148. Poverty of machinery 
in, 148. Of emancipation in, 150. Waste 
of capital in, 370. 



K. 

Kaj''s Social Condition of England, and the 

Continent of Europe. Extracts from, 195, 

445, 498. 
Knowledge last obtained, that of the minute 

machinery with which nature performs 

her greatest works, 528. 



Ii. 

Labor. The first price paid for all things, 90. 
AVaste ot; in Turkey, 154; in Ireland, 162; 
in India, 167; in the ITnited States, 267. 
How the use of the precii>us metals tends 
to promote economy of, 281. Waste of, in 
all puiely agricultural countries, 362. The 
commodity that all desire to sell, 365. 
Waste of power resulting from absence of 
instant demand fjr, 365. Of productive 
and unproductive, as exhibited by Mr. J. 
S. Mill, 372. Waste of, a waste of capital, 
377. The only commodity that disappears 
at the instant of production, 426. Econo- 
my of, a consequence of rapidity of circu- 
lation, 427. 

Laborer in the field, the last emancipated, 
628. 

Laborers of the woild. Solidarity of inter- 
ests among the, 521. 

Laborer's share increases, as the cost of re- 
production declines, 394. 

Labor-power, the only commodity that can- 
not be preserved, 2S1. 

Labors of microscopic insects, importance 
of the, 50. 

Laing. Mr. S. On the division of land and 
its eft'ects, 444. On the condition of French 
and other women, 489. 

Land, value of wholly due to human effort, 
91. Proportion retained as rent tends to 
diminish as man grows in power, 92. Price 
of, never equ.al to the cost of production. 92. 
Facts in reference to the prices of, in Kng- 
land, 92. 93 ; in America, 92. Trivial va- 
lue of that of Turkey, 1.55. Increase in 
the value of that of Fr.ance, 220. How 
the British policy tends to affect property 
in, 380. Grows in value as the societary 
circulation becomes more rapid, 388. 

livision of in France, 221 ; in Russia, 



244; in Sweilen, 248; in Germany, 240 
Slow circulation of in the early stages of 
society, 382. Phenomena of circulation 
exhibited in England, 382. How the 
l)olicy of Colbert tends to produce division 
and circulation of, 385. How division of 
the, teuds to affect thi- laovement of popu- 



540 



INDEX. 



lation, 414. Consolidation of, in England, 
448. 

Land and labor. Increase in value as the 
prices ol" rude products and finished com- 
modities more and more approximate, 
192, 396, 488. 

Language, none, without association, 37. 

Late appreciation of the advantages of 
peace and haimony among mankind, 528. 

Law, in science, demands a regular and uni- 
form series of causes and effects, 439. 

— of molecular gratification, as exhib- 
ited in Social Science, 37. 

of the composition of forces, 28, 123. 

of definite proportions. Equally ap- 
plicable in the physical and social world, 
107. As exhibited in France, 212, 214. In 
reference to wages, profits, and interest 
39T ; to rent, 400. 

— of the relative increase of food and 

population. 55, 463. 

, organic, corrective of excessive pro- 
creation, 453. 

Laws of motion, equally true in physical 
and social science, 107, 108. 

Legislative independence of Ireland, fol- 
lowed by the adoption of measures of pro- 
tection, 167. 

Legislators. How they might profit by the 
study of Social Science, 529. 

Liberty limited by organic relation, 507. 

and order combined and secured, 507. 

Life of man limited by man's disorder, and 
not by the divine order, 442. 

Limitation of man's power over matter, 48. 

■ o" the Irish people to the product of 

raw nirt^erials, 157. 

List, Prof., founder of the Zoll-Verein, 236. 

Local centres, eft'ect of, in the physical and 
social world, 38. How they tend to arise, 
102. Disappearance of those of India, 
163. Decay of, in the British Islands, 42. 
Growth of, in Central and Northern Eu- 
rope, 520. Decline of, in all the countries 
that follow in the lead of England, 521. 

Loss from necessity for the use ot machinery 
of exchange, 101. 

by failures in England, 330. 

Lower animals, great fertility of the, 453. 



M. 

Macavilay, Lord. His account of the origin 
of the Bank of England, 321. 

Machinery in India, taxation of, 166. 

— — of war and trade, abundance of, in 
France, 134. 

— of exchange, loss from necessity, for 

the use of, 101. Diminishes in its propor- 
tions, as men are more enabled to combine 
together, 101. 

McCulloch, Mr. On the pauperism of Ire- 
land, 161. Doctrines of, in regard to money, 
358. Holds that the low wages of Ireland 
are the ca.use of over-population, 398. On 
the causes of excess of Irish population, 
447. 

Magnificence and poverty of France, at va- 
rious periods, 208 

Malthus, Rev. T. R Diff(^rences between his 



system, and that of Adam Smith, 187 
How his disciples might profit by the 
study of Social Science, 630. 

Malthus and Bicardo, the first to adopt the 
mathematical method in Social Science, 
30. Disagreements among their disciples.oS. 

Malthusian Principle of I'npulaiicm, 56. 
Its tendency towards establishing slavery 
as the ultimate condition of man, i_l. 
Leads to the glorification of trade, 126. 
The product and exponent of the British 
system of trade, 197. Professes to furnish 
" one great cause" of the vice and misoT-y 
of the world, 477. Theory not in harmony 
with the facts of the past or the present, 
480. Its author haunted by the idea of 
an imaginary fact, 484. Itself a mere form 
of words, having no real meaning what- 
soever, 485. Relieves the rich and strong 
from all responsibility, 485, 486. Its un- 
christian character, 486. 

Man. Knows himself only as he knows ex- 
ternal nature, 31. The subject of Sociiil 
Science, 37. Essential characteristics of, 
37. His first and greatest need, 37. 
His obedience to the great law of mole- 
cular gravitation, 37. Responsible to 
his Creator, and to his fellow-men, 45. 
The most dependent of all animals, 37. 
Alone gifted with the faculties required 
for mastering nature, 50. Adds nature's 
powers to his own, as he becomes more 
enabled to command her services, 85, S6. 
Becomes more free, as the farmer and the 
artisan come more near together, 102. The 
slave of nature, in the early ages of soci- 
ety, 112. The, who must go to any mar- 
ket, must pay the cost of getting there, 
141, 260. The ultimate object of all pro- 
duction, 364, 520. Grows in value as the 
societary circulation becomes more rapid, 
388. Attributes to himself all the utili- 
ties he develops, 393. Turns against natui e 
all of her powers that he qualifies himself 
to master, 468. Of, the master of nature, 
525. And land at one end of the scale of 
prices, and the most finished commodities 
at the other, 278. Two-fold existence of, 
505. Division of the organic functions of, 
606. Division of the functions of the re- 
lative life of, 505. Vegetable and animal, 
individual and relative life of, 505. The 
individual, an epitome of the aggregate 
man, termed Society, 506. 

Mankind, increase in the numbers of, 48. 

Man's value grows with decline in that of 
the commodities he needs, 81. 

great object, that of obtaining power 

over nature, 87. 

progress in the direct ratio of the 



substitution of continued for intermitted 

motion, 108. 
progress, in whatsoever direction, one 

of constant acceleration, 109. 

life a contest with nature, 157. 

power grows with the substiti'tion of 

vegetable for animal food, 459. 
organic and relative life, local >3ntres 

of, 507. 
Manufactures decline in price, as the power 

of combination grows, 285. 



INDEX. 



541 



Manufacturi* always precede and never 
f Mow the creatiun of a. scientific agricul- 
t\ire, 469. 

Manure, the necessity for, wholly overlooked 
by economists, 162. The most important 
of commodities, and the one that least 
bears transportation, 140, 141. Value of 
the, applied to the British soil, 143. 

Ma- ket, how proximity of the, tends to 
development of the utilities of matter, 176. 
l^ffecfs of proximity of, 202. 

Massachusetts, course of settlement in, 66. 

Mathematics must be used in Social Science, 
30. 

Matter susceptible of no other changes than 
those (if i)liice and of form, 48. Consuiiled 
ill tlie production of force, 49. Endless 
circuliition of, 49. The more rapid the cir- 
culation, the greater the tendency to im- 
provement of its form, 53. Of changes in 
the place of, 118, 137. Of mechanical and 
chemical changes in the form of, 118, 174. 
Of vital changes in the form of, 119, 199. 
Tendency of; to assume higher forms, 
greatest at the lowest point of organiza- 
tion, 436. 

Mechanical and chemical changes in the 
form of matter of. 118, 174. Change in the 
societary proportions consequent upon ex- 
tension of the power to effect, 118. Re- 
quire a knowledge of the properties of 
matter, and therefore later in development 
than changes of place, 174. — (See Conver- 
sion.) 

Mental and moral faculties, varied effects of 
the, up(m procreation, 454. 

Method, of, in science, 29. Unity of science, 
requires unity ot 30. 

of Messrs. Kicardo and Mai thus, 30. 

Methuen treaty, and its effects, 1.52. 

Mexico. Course of settlement in, 69, 70. 

Microscopic insects, importance of the labors 
of. 50. 

Middle classes of England, disappearance 
of the, 195. 

Mill, .1. S. On value in land, 91. On the 
utility of money, 283. On productive and 
unproductive labor, 372. On interest, 398. 
On property in land, 412. On customary 
rights, 433. On the necessity for govern- 
mental interference for the development 
of industry, 513. 

Mississippi Valley. Course of settlement in 
the, 68. 

Modern Economists, material character of 
their teachings, 104, 105. Repulsive form 
of, 105. Anti-christian character of, 124, 
125. ITow they differ from those of Adam 
Smith. 142. 

Molecular gi'avitation, law of, as exhibited 

in Social Science, 37. 
Monetary centralization of France, 332, 333. 
Money, of. Regarded by some economists 
as dead capital, 283. How the societary 
movement would be affected by its disap- 
pearance, 283. Of the supply of, 289. 
Hume, on the supply of, 295. Extraor- 
dinary influence of, 2fl6. The indispensable 
machhiery of progress, 296. Like water, 
seeks the lowest level, 296. Increase in 
the Bupplvof, tends to lower the prices of 

46 



finished commodities, while raising those 
of labor and land, '£M. Charge for the use 
of, 300. Value of, declines with diminu- 
tion of the cost of reproduction, 300. 
Errors of economists in regard to, .301. To 
society, what fuel is to the locomotive, ami 
food to man, 304. Most potent of all the 
instruments used by man, 305. Of tho 
trade in, 308. The one commodity that is 
of universal acceptance, 308. The indis- 
pensable instrument of association, 30;t. 
Falsification of, by Athens and Kome, Ml ; 
by France, 311; by England and Scotland. 
312. Apparent abundance of, prodiicod by 
bank expansions, 316. Value of, how af- 
fected by expansions and contractions, 316. 
Hume on, 352. Adam Smith on, 356. Mc- 
Culloch and Mill on, 358. Baetiat on, 360, 
361. Chevalier on, 362. 

Money and Price, of, 284. 

is capital, but capital is not neces- 
sarily money, 302. 

, export of, from Turkey, 155 ; from 



Portugal, 152; from the United States, 
347. 

• rents, effects of, 221. Laing, Mr. S., 



on, 446. 

Monopolies of Holland, 132. Of the manu- 
facturing centres of the world, 183; of 
England, 201. 

Monopoly of the land, a cause of war and • 
discord, 412. 

Moral restraint of the sexual function, 453. 

Morals of war and trade, identity of the, 117. 

Motion. Essential to progress, 46. Causes 
of societary motion, 46. In the material 
world, a consequence of physical heat : in 
the moral world, of social heat, 56. The 
more continuous, the greater is the force 
obtained, 108. No continuity of, in the 
movements of the isolated settler, 108. 
Cause of heat and force in the social, as 
in the physical world, 390. 

-, laws of. Their application to Social 



Science, 108. 
Mt tto of England, the, 173. 
Movable capital. Changes in the proportion 

borne by, to that which is immovable, 374. 
Movement of the precious metals, 291. 



Nations can permanently prC'Jjer only as 
they obey the golden rule of Christianitj', 
189. 

. How they might profit by careful 

study of the laws of Social Science, 529. 



Natural advantages of the Turkish Empire, 
153; of Ireland, 161. 

laws, universality of the, 46. Sim- 
plicity their essential characteristic, 64. 
In relation to the growth of food and 
population, 463. Beauty and harmony of, 
400. Justify the ways of God to man, 465. 

Natural poverty of Sweden, 246. 

Nature goes on adding jicrfection to perfec- 
tion, from the poles to the tropics, 467. 

Nature's services, gratuity of, 94. 

Navigation laws of England, 180. Adao 
Smith on the, 512. 



542 



INDEX. 



Neryes and brain, special and general func- 

tiuus of, 451. 
, diversity in tlie structure of, corres- 
ponds to vai-iety of their functions, 505. 
Nei'vous and generative powers antagonized 

by organic laws, 453. 

— system, co-ordinating office of the, 505. 

New England, early standard of value of, 

280. 

. banks. Movements of, 341. 

Jersey, course of settlement in, 66. 

York, course of settlement in, 66. 

No natural reason why any community 

should fail to become more prosperous 

from year to year, 124. 
Norway. Early civilization of, 41. 
Nothing but employment needed in Ireland, 

159. 
Nutritive functions ofthe infant independent 

of the brain, 506. 



Obstacles to commerce, in the early periods 
of society, 109. 

Occupation of the earth, of the, 58. 

, accordinfi' to Mr. Ri- 

cardo, 63. 

Opium war, the, 127. 

trade, 471. 

Order and liberty combined and secured, 507. 

Organic law, corrective of excessive procrea- 
tion, 453. 

• laws antagonize the nervous and gen- 
erative powers, 453. 

life of the individual man analogous 

to the societary life of the race, 506. 

Organization individualizes, while promoting 
combination, whether in man, or in socie- 
ties of men, 506. 

, societary, subordination in- the ratio 

of the perfection of the, 522. 

Organized bodies, whether in the physical 
or social world, grow from within, 518. 

Organs of the body, and distribution of its 
functions, 451. 

■ , relative subordination of, 

to the brain, 506. 

Over-population. How produced in Ireland, 
162. 

■ theorj', origin of the, 151, 185. 



(See Malthusian Them-y.) 



P. 

Parliament of England, growth of power In 

the, 207. 
Passy, M., on French agriculture, 216. 
Pathology and physiology of society, 124. 
Pauperism. Of England, 187. 
Peace of 1815, general ruin which followed 

the, 230. 
Peaceful progress of Athens, which followed 

the Solonian legislation. 128. 
Peel, Sir Eobert. His Bank Act of 1844, 327. 

Its failures, 328. 
Pennsylvania, course of settlement in, 66. 
People of France, changes in the condition 

of the, 213. 



Perfect harmony of all the real* and perma^ 
nent interests of men, 192. 

Periods of greatest splendor in Athens, Rome, 
and England, 227. 

Perpetual warfai e of Great Britain, 491. 

Phenomena of the universe resolvable into 
matter and motion, 48. 

of England of the 14th century, re- 
semblance of, to those of agricultural com- 
munities of the present day, 179. 
of decline, 370, 371. 



Philosophers. How they might profit by 
the study of Social Science, 530. 

Phoenician monopolies, 177. 

Phosphorus, uuoxydized, in the brain and 
sperm-cells, 453. 

Phrases substituted for ideas, 85 

Physical and social laws, identity of the, 35, 
107, 390, 431, 523, 526. 

■ power, the only wealth in the early 

stages of society, 112. 

Physiology illustrates the societary func- 
tions of man, 506. 

Pisa, constant wars of, 132. 

Place, of changes of matter in, 137. Neces- 
sity therefor increases, as employments 
become less diversified, 171. (See Trans- 
portation.) 

Plant and animal ordained to return their 
borrowed materials to mother earth, 52. 
Compliance with this order the condition 
of human progress, 53. 

Planter, the. How he is taxed by the British 
system, 193. 

Planting States of America, small production 
of the, 390. 

Point, the, at which men and animals stand 
upon a level with each other, 51. 

Policies of England and France, wide differ- 
ence of the, 207. 

of England and Holland, resemblance 



between the, 219. 

Political Economy, a branch of Social 
Science, 26. Errors of the modern systeai 
of, 197, 402. 

Poor soils first occupied, 59 ; in the United 
States, 66; in Mexico, 69; in the West 
Indies and Central America, 70; in South 
America, 71 ; in England, 71 ; in Scotland, 
71; in France, 72; in Belgium, 72; in 
Scotland and Scandinavia, 72, 73 : in Rus- 
sia and Germanjj^ 73; in Hungary and 
Italy, 73; in Consica and Sicily, 73; in 
Greece, Africa, and the Pacific Islands, 74; 
in India, 74. 

Population, of. Tends to increase as man is 
enabled to obtain vegetable food, 58. 
Brings the food fiom the richer soils. 2(3. 
Tendency of matter to assume higher 
forms, and thus promote increase of, 4.36. 
Period required for duplication of, 4.37, 
Error of modern theories of 437. Creator's 
blunder in reference to, supposed to re- 
quire "positive checks" for their correc; 
tion, 438. Facts in regard to, mistaken 
for the laws of, 438. Growth of. in Eng- 
land, 440. Self-adjusting laws of, 441. 
How increase in the power of association 
tends to affect the growth of, 443. Opera- 
tion of division of the land in reference 
to, 444. How it is affected by growing 



INDEX. 



543 



feeling of responsibility, 445. Reckless- 
ness promotes increase of, 417. Knglish 
rhenomena in reference to, 448. Pioneer 
life favoriiblo to increase of, 450. Natural 
laws regulating the growth of, 455. In- 
creiise of, causes e.Ktension of cultivation 
over richer soils, 45tj. Effect ui>on, conse- 
quent upon the substitutioQ of vegetable 
for animal food, 457. Pressure of, upon 
8ul)sist'?nce, in the countries that follow 
in the lead of Englanil, 462. Laws by 
which the supply of food is adjusted to 
meet the wants .if a growing, 55, 4(54. 

Pui)ulation, Malthusian theory of, 56, 477. 
(See Mullhusiit)! Theory.) 

• and wealth of Portugal, 152. 

, self-acting law of, tends to a harmony 

of conditions. 455. 

Portugal. Trading power of, 152. Splendor 
and decline of, lo2. Manufactures aban- 
d meil by the government of, 152. Dim- 
inution of wealth and population of, 152. 
Decline of agriculture in, and weakness 
of the governrn(-nt of, lo:i. 

Positive and comparative wealth, difference 
between, 103. 

P ist Office, the. IIow it illustrates the dif- 
ference between trade and commerce, 114. 

Poverty and rapacity of Sparta, 130. 

■ and depopulation of Turkey, 155. 

• of early coluuists, 137; of the sove- 
reigns of France, 206; of France, under 
Louis XV., 209. 

Power of association grows with increase of 
numbers, t'O. Grows in all the countries 
that fiUow in the lead of Colbert, 250. 
Declines.in all those that ad.ipt the theories 
of the English school, 171. 

of combination, the distinguishing 

ch ir.'icteristic of civilizatiim, 138. IIow 
affected by supplies of the precious metals, 
282. 

• of nature. How it exhibits itself to 

the savage and the man of science, .306. 

• of progress, one of the distinctive 

chanocteristics of man, 46. 

placed at the command of the people 

of the United States, 267 ; waste of the, 
207. 

to command increased supplies of 

foidand clothing accompanied by dimin- 
ished necessity fir either, 459. 

Powers of man, and his necessities, always 
in the inverse ratio of each other — the 
two combined making a constant juantity, 
112. 

. — of nature become embodied in the 

man, 137. 

Precious metals, the. Recommendations of, 
as standards of value, 281. How their 
value is affected by the process of coinage, 
2sl. Hosv human labor is economized by 
. their use, 2S2. How they affect the socie- 
tary movement, 283. To the social body 
what atmospheric air is to the [diysical 
one, 2S4. How the supply of affects wages 
and interest, 2.t0. Ton(l always towards 
those places at which they are nmst util- 
ized, 290. Ten<lency of, towards Great 
Britain. 29!). Present movement of 2:^0. 
Vhciiomeua of the movement of, 2J1, 2^2. 



Their extraordinai-y power over the cmi- 
dition of men, 294. Equ.ilizing teride;ic> 
of increase in the supply of, 293, 304. IIow 
increase in the sui)ply of, tends to aug- 
ment the supply of food, 2'.>i. Tend to 
leave those countries that do not use cir- 
culating notes, 298. How the societary 
movement of France is affected by, 303. 
Constitute the great instruments of asso- 
ciation, 307. Universal acceptability of, 
308. Tendency of towards steadiness of 
value, 310. Slovement of, in the United 
States, 347. Hume on the supply of and 
its effects, .352. Errors of Adam Smith in 
regard to, 350. Mr. .l.S. Mill on the ser- 
vices rendered by, 359. M. Bastiat on, 301, 
362. M. Chevalier on, 362. 

Predominance of the animal faculties of 
man, 452. 

Price, definition of 284. Phenomena of, 277 
Hume and others on, 296. 

Prices. Appr ■ximation in those of rude pro 
duets anil finished conmiodities, the essen- 
tial test of civilization, 192; comes wiili 
growing civilization, 284, 488, 516. ' How 
it affects circulation, 388. 

-, how affected by supplies of the 



precious metals, 291. 

• of finished commodities tend to fill, 



as agriculture becomes a science, 277 ; con- 
trary tendency, as agriculture declines, 
277. 

of rude products, decline of, in the 

United States, 259, 202. 

r, phenomena of, obsei'ved in France, 



288. 

Principle, first, of the trader, 113. 

Principlesiif Socialand Physical Science,526. 

Problem, the, of Social Science, 31. 

Procreation. General laws of, 453. Com-, 
parative physiology of, 453. How affected 
by the various mental and moral develop- 
ments, 454. IIow influenced by devotion 
to trade, politics, and science, 454, 455. 

Procreative tendency, the. Being admitted 
to be a positive (juantity, slavery becomes 

.., the necessarily ultim;ite condition of the 
mass of the human race, 438. Not a pcisi- 
tive quantity, 439. Adaptability of, to tho 
societary condition, 441, 447. Is subject to 
no determinate rule of action, 442. 

Producer and cousumer. Come together as 
employments become diversilitd, 53. Ap- 
proximation of the, the condition of pro- 
gress, 120. Desires of both, directly op- 
posefl to those of the trader, 115, 268. 
Waste resulting from separation of the, 267. 
Circulation becomes more rapid as tho 
distance is decreased, 3S8. How their ap- 
pro.xim.ation affects the value of lanil anri 
labor, 388. How it influences the conditior. 
of woman, 488. 

Production and consumption of India, 167. 
iicrea.ses, as 'ho nece.s.sity for the 



machinery of e.vciiange diminishes. 102 
Tendency of the British system to increase 
the necessity for the use of that machinery, 
and tlius diminish, 143, 144. 

-, of 364. Where does it end, and 



where does consumption begin? 3t)4. Ci-u- 
sista iu reducing the forces of uaturr to 



iU 



INDEX 



the service of man, 364. Man, the ulti- 
mate object of all, 364. Grows with the 
growth of demand, 365. Increase of, that 
follows the extension of cultivation over 
richer soils, 369. Grows, as the societary 
circulation becomes more rapid, 371. 
Errors of modern economists in regard to, 
372. Increases, as the absolutely neces- 
sary wants of man diminish, 459. 

Production of sperm-cells regulated by men- 
tal activity, 454. 

Productive and unproductive employments, 
of, 104. Mr. J. S. Mill on, 372. 

Progress, power of, one of the distinctive 
characteristics of man, 46. Heat, motion, 
and force, essential to, in both the physical 
and social world, 46. Rate of, dependent 
on the rapidity with which consumption 
fiiUows production, 46. The more instant 
the demand for human powers, the greater 
the tendency towards acceleration in the 
rate of, 281. 

Prohibition of manufactures in the British 
West Indies, 146; in the North American 
Colonies, 144. 

Proportion of labor's products assigned to 
the laborer increases, as that of the cap- 
italist diminishes, 86, 87, 394. 

borne by machinery of exchange to 

production, diminishes as men are more 
enabled to associate, 102. 

Pi-oportions, law of definite, equally ap- 
plicable in Physical and Social Science, 
107. 

■ of money to commerce, 310. 

of the land-owners and the laborers, 

according to the Ricardo theory, 408. That 
theory compared with the facts observed, 
408. (See Rent of land.) 

J?rospect of life increases, with the develop- 
ment of individuality, 135. 

Prosperity comes with diversity in the de- 
mand for human efforts, 473. 

Prostitution. The necessary consequence of 
a system based upon the idea of cheap 
labor, 493. Of, in London, 494. Of, in 
America, 495. 

Protection, of. Reasons for its adoption by 
Portugal, 152. Measures of, adopted in 
France, under the admiaistration of Col- 
bert, 208. Their effect, in giving value to 
land and labor, 208. Policy of, maintained 
by Turgot, 209. Repudiated lay the nego- 
tiators of the Eden treaty, 210. Re-es- 
tablished by the Revolutionary govern- 
ment, and strengthened by Napoleon, 210. 
Simultaneous adopti jn of, by the principal 
nations.of Europe and America, 231. In 
Prussia" 237. In Russia, 242. In Den- 
mark, 232. In Sweden, 246. How it affects 
the currency of the United States, 347. 
How it has influenced the societary move- 
ment of the United States, 348, 349. How 
it promotes the growth of capital, 378. 
How it influences the supply of food in the 
United States, 462. How it affects the de- 
mand for female labor, 490. How regarded 
by Colbert, 511 ; by Hume and Smith, 511 ; 
by J. B. Say, 512 ; by M. Blanqui, 512 ; by 
M. De Jonnfes, 513 ; by Mr. J. S. Mill, 513 ; 
by M. Chevalier, 513. 



Protective policy of England, origin and ex« 

tension of the, 178, 180. 
Proximity nf the market indispensable to 

the growtn of agriculture, 181. 
Prussia, rapid advance of, in wealth and 

power, 41. (See Germany.) 
Prussian tariff of 1818, protective features 

of the, 237. 
Psychology follows Social Science in the 

order of development, 26. 
Public revenue of Turkey, diminution iu 

the 154. 



Q. 

Questions asked by Mathematics and by 
Science, wide difference of the, 529. 



E. 

Rank of the animal, fecundity graduated 
inversely to the, 453. 

Raw material, definition of, 285. 

materials, pi-ices of, tend to rise with 

the progress of civilization, 192, 285. 
Their tendency to falUin all the countries 
subject to the British system, 193. Ap- 
proximation in the prices of, towards those 
of finished commodities, one of the most 
conclusive proofs of humau progress, 192, 
284, 488. Tend toward those places at 
which they are most utilized, 289. 

Reformers. How they might profit bj' the 
study of Social Science, 530. 

Relations of the sexes, 487. Slavery of 
woman in the eaily periods of society, 487. 
Becomes more free, as man advances in 
wealth and power, 488. 

Rent of land. Diminution in tha proportion 
of, an evidence of progress, 87. Obedient 
to the general law of distribution, 401. 
Changes in, consequent upon the growth 
of power to cultivate richer soils, 401. 
Decline in its proportions, as labor becomes 
more productive, 401. Examination of 
Mr. Ricardo's theory of, 403-410. Diminu- 
tion of its proportions admitted by Mr. 
Malthus, 406. Diminution in the propor- 
tions of, in France, 406. Mr. Ricardo'^ 
theory of, inconsistent with all the facta 
observed, 410. 

Rents of Ireland, 157. 

Reproduction, cost of, the limit of value, 83. 
Determines the value of all commodities, 
300, 393. 

Reproductive function predominates in wo- 
man, 454. 

■, and intellectual and moral 



powers, mature contemporaneously, 453. 
Repulsive character of the British trading 
system, 476.' 

of the modern political econo- 



my, 105. 

Responsibility, one of the distinguishing 
characteristics of man, 45. Absence o^ 
in the early stages of society, 45. Becomes 
developed with the growth of individual- 
ity, 45. How it exhibits itself in Germany 
and the United States, 46. Individvality, 



INDEX. 



545 



sssociation, and, develop themselves to- 
gether, 46 Grows with the growth of 
wealth, 105 ; with division of the laiiit, 443. 
How it affects the growtli of population, 
443. Grows with increase in the gifts of 
God to man, 48ti. Of parent and child, 496. 
How that of parents is manifested in 
Central and Northern Kurope, 497. How, 
in England, and in the countries that fol- 
low in her lead, 497 ; in the United States, 
502. Becomes developed iu the ratio of 
the appro.\imation of the prices of rude 
products and finished counuodities, 503. 
Of the statesman, 530. 

Resti-aints upon Irish connuerce and man- 
uf ictures, 157. 

Retrograde character of British policy and 
British theories, 197. 

Revenue system of India, 165, 418; of 
Athens, 417; of Rome, 417, of Holland, 
41S; of Turkey and Sicily, 418; of Great 
Britain, 418; of the United States, 420. 

Ricardo, Mr. His theory of Kent, 63, 64,402. 
His Contradiction of himself, 64. Its ap- 
parent simplicity, but leal complication, 
65. Ba.scd on the assumption of an im- 
aginary fact, 403. Being true, man must 
become nature's slave, 124, 4o3. Not in 
harmony with the facts, 405. His several 
propositions examined, 403-410. His honk 
the true manual of the demagogue, 410. 
Insecurity of property resulting from ad- 
mission of its truth, 412. 

. . His theory of the occupation of 

the earth, 64. Brings with it increasing 
dispersion and weakness — the real liiw 
being that of growing concentration and 
augmented power, 76. 

Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine owes its origin 
to the rejection of the advice of Adam 
Smith, 104. 

Rich soils, abandonment of, in America, 80. 
How the cultivation of, alfects production, 
36J. 

Rights and duties, division of, in .Athens, 128. 

of property, respect for, in Germany, 

2H. 

Robbery and murder deified iu the early 
periods of six;iety, 116. 

Roman patnciau families, rapid extinction 
of the, 455. 

Rome. Splendor and pauperism of, 131. Con- 
solidation of the land of, and trading 
operations iu, 131. Civilization of, 131. 
Taxation of, 417. 

Roots and branches of the tree of science, 25 ; 
of the tree of commerce, 121. 

Rude character of English commerce iu the 
14th century, 178. 

Russia. Coui-se of settlement in, 73. Com- 
merce of, in its purely agricultural state, 

241. Operation of the Continental system, 
and free trade, in, 212. Adoption of the 
policy of Colbert by, 212. Growth of 
manufactures in, 243. Agricultural pro- 
gress of, 242. Prices of rude products in, 

242. Small export of fMMl by, 212. Im- 
proved condition of the agricultural labor 
o( 244. Communism of, 244. Irregularity 
of piic<^ ill, 245. Growing self-dependence 
0^246. 



S. 

Salt tax of Ind », the, 166. 

S.iviug not the cause of growth of capital, 
376. Waste greatest, where it is most 
practised, 376. Errors of economists ia 
regard to, 379. 

Say, J. B., on the cause of value in land, 91 
Rejects the idea of the universal adoption 
of the doctrine of laisser /aire, as applied 
to international commerce, 512. 

Scandinavia. Course of settlement in, 73. 

Scheme of creation, the, not a failure, 525. 

Science developed from the abstract to the 
concrete, 116. 

one and iudivisible, 36. 

Recjuires laws, 32. The interi. rotor 



of nature, 528. 

Scotland. Course of settlement in, 71. 

Selfishness defeats itself, whether that of 
individuals or societies, 178. 

Semi-barbarous countries export their pro- 
ducts in their rudest forms, 515. 

Senior, Mr., on the cause of value in land, 
91. On the duties of an economist, 105. 

Se.xual function, moral restraint of the, 
453. 

Shepherd state of man, of the, 58. 

Ships, wagons, sailors, and brokers, not com- 
merce, 114. 

Short duration of life in new settlements, 
60. 

Simplicity the essential characteristic of 
natui-e's laws, 64. Total absence of, iu Mr. 
Ricaido's theory, 64. 

Simultaneous adoption of the protective 
policy by the principal nations of Europe 
and America, 231. 

Slave, irresponsibility of the, 45. 

trade of Jamaica, 146. 

Slavery, of, in the early stages of society, 
111, 112. A necessary conse(juencp of 
growing dependence on the tra(ler, 142. 
The ultimate tendency of the Ricardo- 
Malthusian doctrine, 197, 406. How pro- 
moted by exhaustion of ,the soil, 390. 
Grows with growing competition for the 
sale of labor, 4;iO. Tendency towaids, in 
all the countries that follow in the train 
of England, 434. Of English women, 493. 

in Rome, 131. 

Slow changes, in the early periods of society, 
in the firms of matter, 51. 

Small proportion of the world yet occupied 
by man, 467. 

Smith, Adam, on the cause of value, 90. His 
uniform opposition to trading centrali/.iv- 
tion, 104. Regarded trade and manufac- 
tures as the handniaidsof agriculture, 186. 
Wide difl'erence between his teachings and 
those of Mr. Malthus and his disciples, 187. 
His errorH in regard to money, 356. On 
the occupation of the land, 397. His .id- 
miration of local centres of activity, 511. 
On protection, 511. 

Smuggler, the, regarded as the great re- 
former of the age, 1S8. 

S'>cial and physical laws, identity or the 
107, 390, 431, 518, 52;!, 52<>. 

condition of the English people, Kay 



uu the, 1j5, 4i5, Wi. 



546 



INPEX. 



Social Ibrce deiiendent on the rapidity of the 

societary circulation, 3S4. 
^—— Science, undetermined character of 
all propositions in, 32. Requires mathe- 
matical formulre, 30. Can scarcely be said, 
as yet, to have existence, 31. Total absence 
of admitted definitions in, 33. Highly con- 
crete and special, and therefore late in its 
development, 33. Obstacles to the progress 
of, 33. Definition of, 47. Identity of its 
laws with those of Physical Science, 37. 
Political Economy, a branch of, 508. Laws 
of, 526. Object of the teachings of, 529. 
How men of all conditions of life might 
profit by the study of, 529. 
Societary motion, constant acceleration of 
the, 138. 

' organization, of the, 522. Multiplies 

force, 522. Subordination of the individual 
parts in the ratio of the perfection of the, 
522. 
■ phenomena, most remarkable of the, 

282. 

• proportions, changes in the, 107, 118, 

121. Effects thereof, 135. 
Society. Of the formation of, 106. Com- 
merce and, but different words for the ex- 
pression of the same idea, 106. Consists 
in combinations resulting from the exist- 
ence of societary differences, 106. Gradual 
production of, 109. The more natural its 
form the greater the tendency towards 
► rapidity of societai-y motion, 131- Ten- 
dency towards duraliility grows with in- 
crease of motion, 121. Order, procession, 
and co-ordination of the various classes 
of, 121. 
Soil, exhaustion of the, a necessary conse- 
quence of dependence on distant markets, 
52. As exhibited throughout the United 
States, 53, 262. 
Soils, cnjtivation commences always with 
the poorer, 59. 

, of the formation of, 50. 

Soldier and trader, identity of the desires of 

the, 117, 127. 
Solidarity of the interests of the various 

nations of the world, 225, 521. 
South America, coarse of settlement in, 70. 
Southern Atlantic States, course of settle- 
ment in the, 68, 69. 
Sovereigns. How they might profit by the 

study of Social Science, 529. 
Spain. Anarchy and insecurity of, 132. Con- 
solidation of, under Ferdinand and Isabella, 
133. Growth of the power of association 
in, 133. Manufactures of, 133. Expulsion 
of the Moors, and decay of commerce in, 
133, 233. Colonial system of, 133, 143. 
Poverty and weakness of, 133, 233. Re- 
cent progress of, 234. 
Sparta. Absence of the power of voluntary 
association in, 130. Poverty,rapacity, and 
fall of, 130. 
Sx>ectatr>r, the., on the waste of labor, under 

the present trading system, 476. 
Sperm-cells, production of, regulated hy 

mental activity, 454. 
Splendor and weakness of Athens, 129; of 
Home, 131 : of Venice, 131 ; of Spain, 133 ; 
of Portugal, 152. 



Standards of valm?. Recommendations of 
the precious metals as, 281. 

Statesman, duties of the, 530. 

Steadiness of movement as necessary to the 
societary machine as to a watch, 115. Oua 
of the characteristics of civilization, 2AS, 
269. 

Steam-power of Great Britain, 266. 

Subordination and liberty combined, 507, 
508. 

of the parts indicative of high organ- 
ization, 42. Grows with the development 
of individuality, 43. The test of the or- 
ganization of the whole, 522. Interde- 
pendence grows with the growth of, o2.'5. 
i'ound in the i-atio of the pejfection of co- 
ordination, 524. Freedom grows with the 
growth of, 524. 

of the functions of the body to the 

cerebral power, 506. 

Summary philosophy of Bacon, 25. 

Sweden. Natural poverty of, 246. Com- 
mercial policy of, 247. Movement of po))U- 
lation in, 247. Division of land in, 248. 
Development of agriculture in, 248. Pros- 
perity (jf the people of, 248. Progress of 
freedom in, 249. Of education in, 498. 

Sympathetic nerve, incorporating and sepa- 
rating offices of the, 507. 



Tahiti, infanticide and immorality of, 483. 

Taxation. Early phenomena of, 110, 111. 
Of Athens, 128. Of the British West India 
Islands, 148. Of France, 217. Of Tui-key, 
154. Of India, under the native prince, 164 ; 
under the British rule, 166. Finds its most 
potent instrument in the power of regulat- 
ing the currency, 332. Little security ob- 
tained in the early ages of society as com- 
pensation for, 413. Pi'oportion of, to pro- 
duction, diminishes, as men are more 
enabled to combine together, 414. Neces- 
sity for indirect, in the purely agricultural 
period, 415. That necessity diminishes, as 
property becomes fixed, 415. Diminishes 
in its proportions, as growing conmierce 
diminishes the demand for the trader's 
services, 424. (See Direct and Indirect 
2'axation.) 

Tax of transportation. Takes precedence 
of all other taxes, 139. As exhibited in 
Ireland, 166; in England, in the 14th 
century, 179. (See Changes in the place 
of matter.) 

Tendency of the lower animals to disappear, 
460. 

Testimony of cUemistry, 453; of physiology, 
505. 

Theory of Mr. Kicardo. Its tendency to- 
wards the establishment of slavery as 
man's ultimate condition, 124. 

Trade, of, 110, 111. Commences with the 
trade in man, 112. Definition of, 113. 
Tendency of, in the direction of centrali- 
zation and slavery, 115. Increase in the 
power of, the scile object of British policy, 
173. 

, only the instrument by means of 



INDEX. 



54 ( 



which commerce may be effected, 113, 114. 
The hitter ileeliiies ai the former grows in 
power, 114. Wiile tlifffreiice of their re- 
Bpoctive tendencies, 268, Jefl, 270, 271, 
276. 

Trade and war the most abstract of human 
iiur.snits,and therefore first developed, 116. 
Identity of the objects souglit by both to 
be acconii)li.ilied, 117. 

, to Commerce what mathematics are 

t science, 116. 

• spasmodic character of the move- 

ments of, 115. 

— ^^ in money, 308. (See Banks.) 

Trader, the, always opposed to comldnation 
amoiig liis subjects. 111. Profits by 
changes of prices that are destructive of 
both producers and consumers, 268. 

. and transporter. Tendency of the 

Britisli system to establish the supremacy 
of both, 185. 

Trader's power, growth of the, attended by 
decline in tlje value of man, 114. Grows 
with decline of commerce, 270. 

— ^— principle to buy cheaply, sell dearly, 
and live at the cost of consumers and 
producers, 113. 

Trading centralization, oppressiveness of, 
165, 162, H;9. Its primary object, that of 
producing competition for the su/c of labor, 
and thus extending slavery, 429. 

monopolies of Athens, 129; of Car- 
thage, 130; of Venice, 131; of Holland, 
132; of the Netherlands, 177. Universal 
failure of, 177. 

Transportation, improvement in the modes 
of, in the absence of nianufictures, facili- 
tates e.xhaustion of the soil, 172. 

Tree, the, of science, 25. 

, the, of commerce, 121. 

Turgot on the beneficial effects of a reduc- 
tion in the rate of interest, 399. 

Turkish Empire, the. Its natural a<tvan- 
tages, 153. Great value of the trade of, in 
the 17th century. 163. Declining agricul- 
ture of, 154. Depopulation and poverty 
of, 155. Trivial commerce of. 155. Siimll 
value of land in, 156. Revenue system of, 
418. 

Tyranny of Athens, 129. 

Two-fold e.xistence of man, 505. Analogous 
to his two-fold life in society, 5U0. 



U. 

Ultimate slavery of man the natural re- 
sult of the lUcardo-Malthusian doclriue, 
406. 

— — cause of the vice and misery of the 
world, 481. 

Union of Ireland and Great Britain, effects 
of the. 157. 

Universality of natural laws, 36, 47, 76, 
476. 

Unproductive and pnvluctive employments, 
of, 104, 105. Mr. J. S. Mill on, 372. 

Uterine system, the, counteracts the cere- 
bral. 454. 

Utilities developed as men are more enabhd 



to associate, 1T6 ; as the market is brought 
nearer to the land, 2i)2. 
Utility, of. 95. throws with the growth of 
wealth and power, 95. The measure of 
man's power over nature, 96. Always in 
the inverse ratio of value, 96. Increases 
with increase in the power of associatiuu 
and combination, 97. 



Value, of, 82. Origin of the iilea of, 83. 
Measure of, S3. Declines with the giowth 
of human power, S3. Inseparably con- 
nected with the idea of comparison, 84. 
Definition of, S7. Inconsistencies of Smith, 
and other economists, in reference to the 
cause of. 90. How change of tends to af- 
fect the distribution of labor's products, 96. 
Always in the inverse ratio of utility, 90. 
Declines with diminution in the cost of 
reproduction, 300. 

in land, cause of, according to modem 



economists, 90. 

of land in France, 220; in England, 



220, 221. 

■ of man measured by the cost of ro- 



production, 399. 
of money, how affected by expansions 

and contractions of the currency, 316. 
tendency towards steadiness of, in 

the precious metals, 310. 
Values, wealth grows with decline of, 102, 

103. 
Variable policy of the United States, 257, 

258. 
Varieties of compensation for the use of 

capital, 304. 
Variety in unity is perfection, 43. 
of employments indispensable to as- 
sociation, 43. 
of machinery in use among men, 

280. 
Vegetable f lod, the use of, indispensable to 

increaso in the power of association, 68. 

Increase in the supplies of, consequent 
• upon the cultivation of richer soils, 457. 

Cuvier on, as the natural food of man, 

468. 

and anim.al, individual and relative 



life of man, 605. 
Vegetation, monotonous character of. in th« 

early ages of the world, 49. Object of, 49 

Necessary to the preparation of the eartl 

for man's residence, 49. 
Venice, constant wars for trade of 131 

Splendor and decay of, 132. 
Vital changes in the form of mattei of, IIS 

19;1. (See Agriculture.) 
heat required for obtiiining command 

of nature's services, 51. 
functions, balance of force among the, 

451. Preponderance of the, in classes of 

men, 4.i2. 

organs, balance of force among the,4.')l. 

statistics of the United States, 450. 

Vohintarv association, as exhibited in Indi.i, 

163; in" the United States, 2.54. 

•, involuntary, and mixed functions 



of the human system, 506. 



548 



INDEX 



W. 

Wages, of. 392. Eise of, accompanies decline 
in the proportions of rent, and increase in 
its quantity, 401. 

• of Turkey, 154; of France, 212; of 

England, at various periods, 368, 406. Ex- 
traordinary statements of modern econo- 
mists in relation to, 406. 

War and trade regard man as an instrument 
to be used, 115. The most abstract of 
human puisuits, and therefore first de- 
veloped, 116. Close connection of, 126, 206. 
Centralizing tendencies of, 127. 

Warrior, the, buys his slaves in the cheap- 
est market, and sells them in the dearest 
one, 112. 

Waste of capital in India, 168; in all the 
countries that follow in the lead of Eng- 
land, 173. 

■ of labor, waste of capital, 377. 

• of labor, resulting from distance of 

the market, 139. 

• of power, resulting from the loss of 

manure, 141 ; from distance of the market, 
203; in Ireland and India, 204; in the 
United States, 267. 

Wealth, of, 98. Commodities and things not 
wealth to those who have not the knowl- 
edge how to use them, 98. First step 
towards the acquisition of, always the 
most costly, and the least productive, 99. 
Consists in the power to command nature's 
services, 100. Grows in the ,ratio of the 
growth of the power of combination, 100. 
With decline of values, 102. Of positive 
and relative, 103. In the early ages of 
society, physical power constitutes the 
only, 112. Grows, as the power of the 
trader declines, 120. Conditions necessary 
to increase of, 138. How the growth of, is 
affected b.y increase of continuity in the 
demand for labor, 200, 201 ; by supplies of 
the precious metals, 284 ; by growing 
rapidity of the circulation, 382; by 
changes in the mode of distribution, 396 ; 
by protection, 511. 



Wealth, most conclusive evidence of increaM 
of, to be found in reduction of the capital- 
ist's proportion, 407. 

Wealth of Nations, chief object of the author 
of the, 186. — (See Smith, Adam.) 

Western United States, course of settlement 
in the, 67, 68. 

West India Islands, course of settlement in 
the, 70. — (See Jamaica.) 

Whately, Abp., on the present state of 
Social Science, 33. 

Woman. Always a slave, in the early stages 
of society, 112. Reproductive function 
predominates in, 454. Cerebral power of, 
abated by the reproductive system, 454. 
Power of, grows as employments become 
diversified, 487. Condition of, in Fiance, 
488, 489. Improvement in the condition 
of, resulting from division of the land, 490. 
How manifested in Central and Northern 
Europe, 490. Condition of, in England, 
490, 492, 493. Deterioration of condition 
of, in the countries that follow in the train 
of England, 490. Of England, an instiu- 
ment used by trade for the degradation 
of the sex throughout the world, 492, 493. 
Of the United States, 495. Wrongs of, 493. 

Wonderful beauty of all natural arrange- 
ments, 460. 

Working-men, how they might profit by the 
study of Social Science, 529. 



Y. 

Yarranton, Andrew, first to suggest the 
measures which have led to the manufac- 
turing greatness of England, 180. 



Z. 

Zemindars of India, ruin of the, 165. 
ZoU-Verein, formation of the, due to the 

labors of Professor List, 236, 237. Gradual 

establishment of the, 238. 



TfiE END. 



CATALOGUE 

PRACTICAL Al illTlC BOOKS, 



ipudbxjISiiexj ■but 



HEMT CARET BAIRD & CO., 

Industrial Publishers and Booksellers, 
NO. 810 ^^V^ALNUT STREET, 



I>HI3L,A.r>ELl?HIA.. 



'8®' Any of the Books comprised in this Catalogue will he sent hy mail, free of 
postage, at the publication price. 

^S" A Descriptive Catalogue, 96 pages, 8vo., will he sent, free of postage, to any 
one who will furnish the publisher with his address. 



ARLOT.— A Complete Guide for Coach Painters, 
Translated from the French of M. Aklot, Coach Painter; for eleven 
years Foreman of Painting to M. Eherler, Coach Maker, Paris. By 
A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. To which is added an Ap- 
pendix, containing Information respecting the Materials and the 
Practice of Coach and Car Painting and Varnishing in the United 
States and Great Britain. 12mo §1.25 

ARMENGAUD, AMOROUX, and JOHNSON.— The 
Practical Draughtsman's Book of Industrial De- 
sign, and Machinist's and Engineer's Drawing 
Companion : 

Forming a Complete Course of Mechanical Engineering and Archi- 
tectnral Drawing. From the French of M. Arraengaud the elder. Prof, 
of Design in the Conservatoire of Arts and Industry, Paris, and MM. 
Armengaud the younger, and Anioroux, Civil Engineers. Rewritten 
and arranged with additional matter and plates, selections from and 
examples of the most useful and generally employed mechanism of 
the day. By William .Johnson, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Editor of " The 
Practical Mechanic's Journal." Illustrated by 50 folio steel plates, 
and 50 wood-cuts. A new edition, 4to. .... $10.00 

1 



2 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

ARRO WSMITH.— Paper-Hanger's Companion : 

A Treatise in which the Practical Operations of the Trade are Sys- 
tematically laid down : with Copious Directions Preparatory to Paper- 
ing ; Preventives against the Effect of Damp on Walls ; the Various 
Cements and Pastes Adapted to the Several Purposes of the Trade ; 
Observations and Directions for the Panelling and Ornamenting of 
Rooms, etc. By James Aeeowsmith, Author of "Analysis of Dra- 
pery," etc. 12mo., cloth $1.25 

ASHTON.— The Theory and Practice of the Art of De- 
signing Fancy Cotton and Woollen Cloths from 
Sample : 

Giving full Instructions for Reducing Drafts, as well as the Methods 
of Spooling and Making out Harness for Cross Drafts, and Finding 
any Required Reed, with Calculations and Tables of Yarn. By 
Frederick T. Ashton, Designer, West Pittsfield, Mass. With 52 
Illustrations. One volume, 4to $10.00 

BAIRD. — Letters on the Crisis, the Currency and the 
Credit System. 
By Henry Carey Baird. Pamphlet 05 

BAIRD. — Protection of Home Labor and Home Pro- 
ductions necessary to the Prosperity of the Ameri- 
can Farmer. 
By Henry Carey Baird. 8vo., paper 10 

BAIRD.— Some of the Fallacies of British Free-Trade 
Revenue Reform. 

Two Letters to Arthur Latham Perry, Professor of History and Politi- 
cal Economy in Williams College. By Henry Carey Baird. 
Pamphlet 05 

BAIRD.— The Rights of American Producers, and the 
Wrongs of British Free- Trade Revenue Reform. 
By Henry Carey Baird. Pamphlet 05 

BAIRD. — Standard Wages Computing Tables : 

An Improvement in all former Methods of Computation, so arranged 
that wages for days, hours, or fractions of hours, at a specified rate per 
day or hour, may be ascertained at a glance. By T. Spangler Baird. 
Oblong folio $5.00 

BAIRD. — The American Cotton Spinner, and Mana- 
ger's and Carder's Guide : 

A Practical Treatise on Cotton Spinning ; giving the Dimensions and 
Speed of Machinery, Draught and Twist Calculations, etc. ; with 
notices of recent Improvements : together with Rules and Examples 
for making changes in the sizes and numbers of Roving and Yarn. 
Compiled from the papers of the late Robert H. Baird. 12mo. $1.50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 3 

BAKER.— Long-Span Railway Bridges : 
Comi)rising Investigations of the (Comparative Theoretical and Prac- 
tical Advantages of the various Adopted or Proposed Type Systems 
of Construction ; with numerous Formula; and Tables. By B. Baker. 
12mo $2.00 

BATJERMAN,— A Treatise on the Metallurgy of Iron : 

Containing Outlines of the History of Iron Manufacture, Methods of 
Assay, and Analysis of Iron Ores, Processes of Manufacture of Iron 
and Steel, etc., etc. By H. Bauerman, F. G. S., Associate of the 
Koyal School of Mines. First American Edition, Revised and En- 
larged. With an Appendix on the Martin Process for Making Steel, 
from the Report of Abeam S. Hewitt, U. S. Commissioner to the 
Universal Exposition at Paris, 1867. Illustrated. 12mo. . $2.00 

BEANS.— A Treatise on Railway Curves and the Loca- 
tion of Railways. 

By E. AV. Beans, C. E. Illustrated. 12mo. Tucks. . . $1.50 

BELL. — Carpentry Made Easy : 

Or, The Science and Art of Framing on a New and Improved System. 
With Specific Instructions for Building Balloon Frames, Barn Frames, 
Mill Frames, Warehouses, Church Spires, etc. Comprising also a 
System of Bridge Building, with Bills, P>stimates of Cost, and valuable 
Tables. Illustrated by 38 plates, comprising nearly 200 figures. By 
William E. Bell, Architect and Practical Builder. 8vo. . $5.00 

BELL.— Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting : 

An Experimental and Practical Examination of the Circumstances 
which determine the Capacity of the Blast Furnace, the Temperature 
of the Air, and the proper Condition of the Materials to be operated 
upon. By I. LowTHiAX Bell. Illustrated. 8vo. . . $6.00 

BEMROSE.— Manual of Wood Carving : 

With Practical Illustrations for Learners of the Art, and Original and 
Selected Designs. By WiLLiAM Bemrose, Jr. With an Introduction 
bv Llewellyn Jewitt, F. S. A., etc. With 128 Illustrations. 4to., 
cioth. ■ $3.00 

BICKNELL.— Village Builder, and Supplement : 

Elevations and Plans for Cottaees, Villas, Suburban Residences, 
Farm Houses, Stables and Carriage Houses. Store Fronts, School 
Houses, Churches, Court Houses, and a model Jail ; also. Exterior and 
Interior details for Public and Private Buildings, with approved 
Forms of Contracts and Specifications, including Prices of Building 
Materials and Labor at Boston, Mass., and St. Louis, Mo. Containing 
7.5 plates drawn to scale; showing the style and cost of building in 
different sections of the country, being an original work comprising 
the desiffns of twenty leading architects, rej)rcsenting the New Eng- 
land, Middle, Western, and Southwestern States. 4to. . $12.00 



4 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

BLEKKARN. — Practical Specifications of Works exe- 
cuted in Architecture, Civil and Mechanical Engi- 
neering, and in Road Making and Sewering : 

To which are added a series of practically useful Agreements and Re- 
ports. By John Blenkakn. Illustrated by 15 large folding plates. 
8vo. ijS.OO 

BLINN,— A Practical Workshop Companion for Tin, 
Sheet-Iron, and Copperplate Workers : 

Containing Rules for describing various kinds of Patterns used by 
Tin, Sheet-Iron, and Copper-plate Workers ; Practical Geometry ; 
Mensuration of Surfaces and Solids ; Tables cf the Weights of iletals, 
I>ead Pipe, etc. ; Tables of Areas and Circumferences of Cii-cles ; 
Japan, Varnishes, Lackers, Cements, Compositions, etc., etc. By 
Leroy J. Blinn, Master Mechanic. With over 100 Illustrations. 
12mo $2.50 

BOOTH.— Marble Worker's Manual: 

Containing Practical Information respecting Marbles in general, their 
Cutting, Working, and Polishing ; Veneering of Marble ; Mosaics ; 
Composition and Use of Artificial Marble, Stuccos, Cements, Receipts, 
Secrets, etc., etc. Translated from the French by M. L. Booth. 
With an Appendix concei-ning American Marbles. 12mo., cloth. $1.50 

BOOTH AND MORFIT.— The Encyclopedia of Che- 
mistry, Practical and Theoretical : 

Embracing its application to the Arts, Metallurgy, Mineralogy, Ge- 
ology, Medicine, and Pharmacy. By James C. Booth, Melter and 
Refiner in the United States Mint, Professor of Applied Chemistry in 
the Franklin Institute, etc., assisted by Campbell Morfit, author 
of " Chemical Manipulations," etc. Seventh edition. Royal 8vo., 
978 pages, with numerous wood-cuts and other illustrations. . §5.00 

BOX.— A Practical Treatise on Heat: 

As applied to the Useful Arts ; for the Use of Engineers, Architects, 
etc. By Thomas Box, author of " Practical Hydraulics." Illustrated 
by 14 plates containing 114 figures. 12mo $4.25 

BOX. — Practical Hydraulics : 

A Series of Rules and Tables for the use of Engineers, etc. By 
Thomas Box. 12mo $2.50 

BROWW.— Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical 
Movements : 
Embracing all those which are most important in Dynamics, Hydrau- 
lics, Ilydrost'itics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines, Mill and other Gear- 
ing, Presses, Horology, and Miscellaneous Machineiy ; and including 
many movements never before published, and several of which have 
only recently come into use. By Henry T. Brown, Editor of the 
" American Artisan." In one vohirae, 12mo. . . , $1.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 6 

BUCKMASTEB,.— The Elements of Mechanical Phy- 
sics : 
By J. C. BucKMASTEE, late Student in the Government School of 
Mines ; Certified Teaclier of Science by the Department of Science 
•and Art; Examiner in Chemistry and Physics in tlie Royal College 
of Preceptors; and late Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics of the 
Royal Polytechnic Institute. Illustrated witli numerous engravings. 
In one volume, 12mo $1.50 

BULLOCK.— The American Cottage Builder : 

A Series of Designs, Plans, and Specifications, from .$200 to $20,000, 
for Homes for the People ; together with Warming, Ventilation, 
Drainage, Painting, and Landscape Gardening. By JoHX Bullock, 
Architect, Civil Engineer, Mechanician, and Editor of " The Rudi- 
ments of Architecture and Building," etc., etc. Illustrated by 75 en- 
gravings. In one volume, Svo $3.50 

BULLOCK. — The Rudiments of Architecture and 
Building: 

For the use of Architects, Builders, Draughtsmen, Machinists, Engi- 
neers, and Mechanics. Edited by John Bullock, author of " The 
American Cottage Builder." Illustrated by 250 engravings. In one 
volume, 8vo $3.50 

BURGH.— Practical Illustrations of Land and Marine 
Engines : 
Showing in detail the Modern Improvements of High and Low Pres- 
sure, Surface Condensation, and Super-heating, together witi Land 
and Marine Boilers. Bv N. P. BuRGH, Engineer. lUustrrted bv 
20 plates, double elephant folio, with text . . , . S21.0b 

BURGH.— Practical Rules for the Proportions or Mo- 
dern Engines and Boilers for Land and Marine 
Purposes. 
By X. P. BvKGH, Engineer. 12mo $1.50 

BURGH.— The Slide- Valve Practically Considered. 

By X. P. Burgh, Engineer. Comiiletely illustrated. 12mo. $2.00 

BYLES.— Sophisms of Free Trade and Popular Politi- 
cal Economy Examined. 
By a Barri.'^ter (Sir John Barnard Byles, Judge of Common 
Pleas). First American from the Xinth English Edition, as published 
bv the Manchester Reciprocity Association. In one volume, 12mo, 
Paper, 75 cts. Cloth $1.25 

PYRN.— The Complete Practical Brewer : 

Or Plain, Accurate, and Thorough Instructions in the Art of Brewing 
Beer, Ale, Porter, including the Process of making Bavarian Beer, 
all the Small Beers, such as Root-beer, Ginger-pop, Sarsaparilla- 
beer. Mead, Spruce Beer, etc., etc. Adapted to the use of Public 
Brewers and Private Families. By M. La Fayette Byrn, M D. 
With illustrations. 12mo $1.25 



« HENEY CAREY BAIED'S CATALOGUE. 

BYE,N.— The Complete Practical Distiller : 

Comprising the most perfect and exact Theoretical and Practical De- 
scription of the Art of Distillation and Rectification ; including all of 
the most recent improvements in distilling apparatus ; instructions 
for preparing spirits from the numerous vegetables, fruits, etc. ; direc- 
tions for the distillation and preparation of all kinds of brandies and 
other spirits, spirituous and other compounds, etc., etc. By M. La 
Fayette Byrn, M. D. Eighth Edition. To which are added. Prac- 
tical Directions for Distilling, from the French of Th. Fling, Brewer 
and Distiller, 12mo. $1.50 

BYRNE. — Handbook for the Artisan, Mechanic, and 
Engineer : 

Comprising the Grinding and Sharpening of Cutting Tools, Abrasive 
Processes, Lajsidary Work, Gem and Glass Engraving, Varnishing 
and Lackering, Apparatus, Materials and Processes for Grinding and 
Polishing, etc. By Oliver Bybne. Illustrated by 185 wood en- 
gravings. In one volume, 8vo $5.00 

BYRNE.— Pocket Book for Railroad and Civil Engi- 
neers : 

Containing New, Exact, and Concise Methods for Laying out Rail- 
road Curves, Switches, Frog Angles, and Crossings; the Staking 
out of work ; Levelling ; the Calculation of Cuttings ; Embankments ; 
Earth-work, etc. By Oliver Byrne. 18mo., full bound, pocket- 
book form $1.75 

BYRNE. — The Practical Model Calculator : 

For the Engineer, Mechanic, Manufacturer of Engine Work, Naval 
Architect, Miner, and Millwright. By Oliver Byrne. 1 volume, 
8vo., nearly 600 pages $4.50 

BYRNE.— The Practical Metal-Worker's Assistant : 

Comprising Metallurgio Chemistry ; the Arts of Working all Metals 
and Alloys ; Forging of Iron and Steel ; Hardening and Tempering ; 
Melting and Mixing; Casting and Founding; Works in Sheet Metal; 
The Processes Dependent on the Ductility of the Metals; Soldering; 
and the most Improved Processes and Tools employed by Metal- 
workers. With the Application of the Art of Electro-Metallurgy to 
Manufacturing Processes ; collected from Original Sources, and from 
the Works of Holtzapffel, Bergeron, Leupold, Plumier, Napier, 
Scoffern, Clay, Fairbairn, and others. By Oliver Byrne. A new, 
revised, and improved edition, to which is added An Appendix, con- 
taining The Manufacture of Russian Sheet-Iron. By John 
Percy, M. D., F.R.S. The Manufacture of Malleable Iron 
Castings, and Improvements in Bessemer Steel. By A. A. 
Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. With over 600 Engravings, illus- 
trating every Branch of the Subject. 8vo $7.00 

Cabinet Maker's Album of Furniture : 

Comprising a Collection of Designs for Furniture. Illustrated by 48 
Large and Beautifully Engraved Plates. In one vol., oblong $5.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 7 

CALLINGHAM.— Sign Writing and Glass Emboss- 
ing: 

A Complete Practical Illustrated Manual of the Art. By James 
Callingiiam. In one volume, 12mo $1.50 

CAMPIN.— A Practical Treatise on Mechanical Engi- 
neering : 

Comprising Metallurgy, Moulding, Casting, Forging, Tools, Work- 
shop Machinery, Mechanical Manipulation, Manufacture of Steam- 
engines, etc., etc. With an Appendix on the Analysis of Iron and 
Iron Ores. By Fraxcis Campin, C. E. To which are added. Obser- 
vations on the Construction of Steam Boilers, and ilemarks upon 
Furnaces used for Smoke Prevention ; with a Chapter on Explosions. 
By II. Armstrong, C. E., and John Bourne. Rules for Calculating 
the Change Wheels for Screws on a Turning Lathe, and for a Wheel- 
cutting Machine. By J. La Nicca. Management of Steel, Includ- 
ing Forging, Hardening, Tempering, Annealing, Shrinking, and Ex- 
pansion. And the Case-hardening of Iron. By G. Ede. tivo. Illus- 
trated with 29 plates and 100 wood engravings . . . $G.OO 

CAMPIN.— The Practice of Hand-Turning in Wood, 
Ivory, Shell, etc. : 
With Instructions for Turning such works in Metal as may be re- 
quired in the Practice of Turning Wood, Ivory, etc. Also, an Appen- 
dix on Ornamental Turning. By Feancis CampiN; with Numerous 
Illustrations. 12mo., cloth •. $3.00 

CAREY.— The Works of Henry C. Carey : 
FINANCIAL CRISES, their Causes and Effects. 8vo. paper . 25 
HARMONY OF INTERESTS: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and 

Commercial. 8vo., cloth $1.50 

MANUAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. Condensed from Carey's " Prin- 
ciples of Social Science." By Kate McKean. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.25 
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS : comprising " Harmony of Interests," 
"Money," "Letters to the President," " Financial Crises," " The 
Way to Outdo England Without Fighting Her," " Resources of 
the Union," " The Public Debt," " Contraction or Expansion ? " 
" Review of the Decade 1857-'67," " Reconstruction," etc., etc. 

Two vols., 8vo., cloth $10.00 

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 8vo $2.50 

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 3 vols., 8vo., cloth $10.00 
THE SLAVE-TRADE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN ; AVhy it Ex- 
ists, and How it may be Extinguished (1853). 8vo., cloth . $2.00 
LETTERS ON INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT (1867) . .50 
THE UNITY OF LAW : As Exhibited in the Relations of Physical, 
Social, Mental, and Moral Science (1872). In one volume, Svo., 
pp. xxiii., 433. Cloth $3.50 

CHAPMAN. — A Treatise on Ropemaking : 

As Practised in j)rivate and public Rope yards, with a Description 
of the Manufacture, Rules, Tables of Weights, etc., ada])ted to the 
Trades, Shipping, Mining, Railways, Builders, etc. By Robert 
Chapman. 24mo $1.50 



8 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

COLBURN.— The Locomotive Engine : 

Including a Description of its Structure, Rules for Estimating its Capa- 
bilities, and Practical Observations on its Construction and Manage- 
ment. By Zekah CoLBUEN. Illustrated. A new edition. 12mo. $1.25 

CE.AIK. — The Practical American Millwright and 
Miller. 
By David Ckaik, Millwright. Illustrated by numerous wood en- 
gravings, and two folding plates. 8vo $5.00 

DE GRAFF.— The Geometrical Stair Builders' Guide : 

Being a Plain Practical System of Hand-Railing, embracing all its 
necessary Details, and Geometrically Illustrated by 22 Steel Engrav- 
ings ; together with the use of the most approved principles of Prac- 
tical Geometry. By Simon De Gkaff, Architect. 4to. . $5.00 

r)E KONIWCK.— DIETZ.— A Practical Manual of Che- 
mical Analysis and Assaying : 

As applied to the Manufacture of Iron from its Ores, and to Cast Iron, 
Wrought Iron, and Steel, as found in Commerce. By L. L. De Kon- 
INCK, Dr. Sc, and E. DiETZ, Engineer. Edited with Notes, by Robert 
Mallet, F.R.S., F.S.G., M.I.C.E., etc. American Edition, Edited 
with Notes and an Appendix on Iron Ores, by A. A. Fesqxjet, Chemist 
and Engineer. One volume, 12mo. $2,50 

DUNCAN. — Practical Surveyor's Guide: 

Containing the necessary information to make any person, of common 
capacity, a finished land surveyor without the aid of a teacher. By 
Andrew Duncan. Illustrated. 12mo., cloth. . . . $1.25 

DUPLAIS.— A Treatise on the Manufacture and Dis- 
tillation of Alcoholic Liquors : 

Comprising Accurate and Complete Details in Regard to Alcohol from 
Wine, Molasses, Beets, Grain, Rice, Potatoes, Sorghum, Asphodel, 
Fruits, etc. ; with the Distillation and Rectification of Brandy, Whis- 
key, Rum, Gin, Swiss, Absinthe, etc., the Preparation of Aromatic Wa- 
ters, Volatile Oils or Essences, Sugars, Syrups, Aromatic Tinctures, 
Liqueurs, Cordial Wines, Effervescing Wines, etc., the Aging of Brandy 
and the Improvement of Spirits, with Copious Directions and Tables 
for Testing and Reducing Spirituous Liquors, etc., etc. Translated 
and Edited from the French of MM. Duplais, Aine et Jeune. By 
M. McKennie, M.D. To which are added the United States Internal 
Revenue Regulations for the Assessment and Collection of Taxes on 
Distilled Spirits. Illustrated by fourteen folding plates and several 
wood engravings. 743 pp., 8vo $10.00 

DUSSAUCE.— A General Treatise on the Manufacture 
of Every Description of Soap : 

Comprising the Chemistry of the Art, with Remarks on Alkalies, Sa- 
ponifiable Fatty Bodies, the apparatus necessary in a Soap Factory, 
Practical Instructions in the manufacture of the various kinds of Soap, 
the assay of Soaps, etc., etc. Edited from Notes of Larme, Fontenelle, 
Malapayre, Dufour, and others, with large and important additions by 
Prof. H. Dussauce, Chemist. Illustrated. In one vol., 8vo. . $10.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 9 

DUSSAITCE.— A General Treatise on the Manufacture 
of Vinegar : 
Theoretical luid Practical. Comprising the various Methods, by the 
Slow ami the Quick Processes, with Alcohol, Wine, Grain, Malt, Cider, 
Molasses, and iieets ; as well as tlie Fabrication of Wood Vinegar, etc. 
eic. By Prof. H. DussAlcE. In one volume, 8vo. . . $5.00 

PUSSAITCE.— A New and Complete Treatise on the 
Arts of Tanning, Currying, and Leather Dressing : 

Comprising all the Discoveries and Improvements made in France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. Edited from Notes and Docu- 
ments of Messrs. Sallerou, Grouvelle, Duval, Dessables, Labarraque, 
Payen, Rene, De Fontenelle, Malapeyre, etc., etc. By Prof. H. Dus- 
SAUCE, Chemist. Illustrated by 212 wood engravings. 8vo. $25.00 

PUSSAUCE— A Practical Guide for the Perfumer : 

Being a New Treatise on Perfumery, the most favorable to the Beauty 
■without being injurious to the Health, comprising a Description of the 
substances used in Perfumerv, the Formula; of more than 1000 Prepa- 
rations, such as Cosmetic-t. t'erfumed Oils, Tooth Powders, Waters, 
Extracts, Tinctures, Infusions, Spirits, Vinaigres, Essential Oils, Pas- 
tels, Creams, Soaps, aud many new Hygienic Products not hitherto 
described. Edited from Notes" and Documents of Messrs. Debay, La- 
nd, etc. With atlditions by Prof. H. Dussauce, Chemist. 12nio. ' $^3,00 

DUSSAUCE.— Practical Treatise on the Fabrication 
of Matches, Gun Cotton, and Fulminating Powders. 

By Prof. H. DusSAUCE. 12mo $o,00 

Dyer and Color-maker's Companion: 

Containing upwards of 200 Piecei])ts for making Colors, on the most 
approved ])rinciples, for all the various styles and fabrics now in exist- 
ence; with the Scouring Process, and plain Directions for Preparing, 
Washing-ofF, and Finishing the Goods. In one vol., 12mo. , SI. 25 

EASTON.— A Practical Treatise on Street or Horse- 
power Kailways. 

Bv Alexandee Easton, C. E. Illustrated by 23 plat«s. 8vo., 
cloth $2.00 

ELDER.— Questions of the Day: 

Economic and Social. By Dr. William Elder. 8vo. , S3. 00 

PAIRBAIRN.— The Principles of Mechanism and Ma- 
chinery of Transmission : 
Comjirisin!,' tlifi Principles of Mechanism, Wheels, and Pulley.s, 
Strength and Proportions of Shafts, Coupling of Shafts, and Engaging 
and Disengaging Gear. By Sir AVil.LlAM P^AirUAlRX, C.E., LL.D., 
F.R.S., F.G.S. Beautifully illustrated by over 150 wood-cuts. In 
one volume, 12mo $2.50 

FORSYTH — "Book of Designs for Headstones, Mm'al. 
and other Monument?; : 
Containing 78 Designs. By .Fames Forsyth. With an Introduction 
by Charles Boctell, M! A. 4to., cloth $5.00 



10 HENEY CAREY BAIED'S CATALOGUE. 

GIBSON. — The American Dyer: 

A Practical Treatise on the Coloring of Wool, Cotton, Yarn and 
Cloth, in three parts. Part First gives a descriptive account of the 
Dye Stuffs ; if of vegetable origin, vs^here produced, how cultivated, 
and how prepared for use ; if chemical, their composition, specific 
gravities, and general adaptability, how adulterated, and how to de- 
tect the adulterations, etc. Part Second is devoted to the Coloring of 
Wool, giving recipes for one hundred and twenty -nine different colors 
or shades, and is supplied with sixty colored samples of Wool. Part 
Third is devoted to the Coloring of Eaw Cotton or Cotton Waste, for 
mixing with Wool Colors in the Manufacture of all kinds of Fabrics, 
gives recipes for thirty-eight different colors or shades, and is supplied 
with twenty-four colored samples of Cotton Waste. Also, recii^es for 
Coloring Beavers, Doeskins, and Flannels, with remarks upon Ani- 
lines, giving recipes for fifteen different colors or shades, and nine 
samples of Aniline Colors that will stand both the Fulling and Scour- 
ing process. Also, recii^es for Aniline Colors on Cotton Thread, and 
recipes for Common Colors on Cotton Yarns. Embracing in all over 
two hundred recipes for Colors and Shades, and ninety-four samples 
of Colored Wool and Cotton Waste, etc. By Eichakd H. Gibson, 
Practical Dyer and Chemist. In one volume, 8vo. . . $12.50 

GILBART. — History and Principles of Banking : 

A Practical Treatise. By James W. Gilbakt, late Manager of the 
London and Westminster Bank. With additions. In one volume, 
8vo., 600 pages, sheep $5.00 

Gothic Album for Cabinet Makers : 

Comprising a Collection of Designs for Gothic Furniture. Illustrated 
by 23 large and beautifully engraved plates. Oblong . . $3.00 

GRANT. — Beet-root Sugar and Cultivation of the 
Beet. 
By E. B. Geant. 12mo. . $1.25 

GREGORY.— Mathematics for Practical Men : 

Adapted to the Pursuits of Surveyors, Architects, Mechanics, and 
Civil Engineers. By Olinthus Gkegoky. 8vo., plates, cloth $3.0(1 

GRISWOLD. — Railroad Engineer's Pocket Compan- 
ion for the Field : 

Comprising Eules for Calculating Deflection Distances and Angles, 
Tangential Distances and Angles, and all Necessaiy Tables for Engi- 
neers ; also the art of Levelling from Preliminary Survey to the Con- 
struction of Railroads, intended Expressly for the Young Engineer, 
together with Numerous Valuable Rules and Examples. By W. 
Geisvpold. 12mo., tucks $1.75 

GRUNER. — Studies of Blast Furnace Phenomena. 

By M. L. Getjnee, President of the General Council of Mines of 
France, and lately Professor of Metallurgy at the Ecole des Mines. 
Translated, with the Author's sanction, with an Appendix, by L. D. B. 
Gordon, F. E. S. E., F. G, 8. Illustrated. 8vo. . . . $2.50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 11 

GUETTIER— Metallic AUoys: 

Being a Practical Guide to their Cliemical and Physical Properties, 
their Preparation, Composition, and Uses. Translated from tiie 
French of A. Guettier, Engineer and Director of Foundries, autlior 
of " La Fouderie en France," etc., etc. By A. A. Fesquet, Chemist 
and Engineer. In one volume, 12mo $3.00 

HARRIS. — Gas Superintendent's Pocket Companion. 

By Harris & Brother, Gas Meter Manufacturers, 1 11.5 and 1117 
Ciaerry Street, Philadelphia. Full bound in pocket-book form $2.00 

Hats and Felting: 

A Practical Treatise on their Manufacture. By a Practical Hatter. 
Illustrated by Drawings of Machinery, etc. 8vo. . . . $1.25 

HOFMANN.— A Practical Treatise on the Manufac- 
ture of Paper in all its Branches. 

By Carl Hofmann. Late Superintendent of paper mills in Ger- 
many and the Unitc<l States; recently manager of tlic Pul)lic Ledger 
Paper Jlills, near Elkton, ^Id. Illustrated by 110 wood engravings, 
and five large folding plates. In one volume, 4to., cloth; 308 
pages $15.00 

HUGHES. — American Miller and Millwright's Assist- 
ant. 

By Wm. Carter Hughes. A new edition. In one vol., 12mo. $1.50 

HURST. — A Hand-Book for Architectural Surveyors 
and others engaged in Building: 

Containing Formulae useful in Designing Builder's work, Table of 
Weights, of the materials used in Building, Memoranda connected 
witli Builders' work. Mensuration, the Practice of Builders' r>Ieasure- 
ment. Contracts of Laboi-, Valuation of Property, Summary of the 
Practice in Dilapidation, etc., etc. By J. F. Ili'RST, C. E. Second 
edition, pocket-book form, full bound $2.50 

JERVIS.— Railway Property : 

A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Railways ; de- 
signed to aflbrd usc^ful Knowledge, in tin; popular style, to tlie holders 
of tills class of ]iroperty; as well as Railway JIanagers, OfHccrs, nnd 
Agents. By John B. .Jkkvis, late Chief Engineer of tlie Hudson 
River Railroad, Croton Aqueduct, etc. In one vol., 12mo., cloth s2.00 

JOHNSTON.— Instructions for the Analysis of Soils, 
Limestones, and Manures. 

By J. F. W. Joux.sTox. 12mo 33 



12 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

KEEWE.— A Hand-Book of Practical Gauging : 

For the Use of Beginners, to which is added, A Chapter on Distilla> 
tion, describing tlie process in operation at the Custom House foir 
ascertaining the strength of wines. By James B. Keene, of H. M. 
Customs. 8vo. $1.25 

KELTjEY. — Speeches, Addresses, and Letters on In- 
dustrial and Financial Questions. 
By Hon. William D. Kelley, M. C. In one volume, 544 pages, 
8vo $3.00 

KENTISH. — A Treatise on a Box of Instruments, 

And the Slide Rule ; with the Theory of Trigonometry and Loga- 
rithms, including Practical Geometry, Surveying, Measuring of Tinit 
ber. Cask and Malt Gauging, Heights, and Distances, By Thomas 
Kentish. In one volume. 12mo $1.25 

KOBELL.—ERNI.— Mineralogy Simplified : 

A bhort Method of Determining and Classifying Minerals, by means 
of simple Chemical ExjDeriments in the Wet Way. Translated from 
the last German Edition of F. VoN Kobell, with an Introduction to 
Blow-pipe Analysis and other additions. By Henki Eeni, M. D., 
late Chief Chemist, Department of Agriculture, author of " Coal Oil 
and Petroleum." In one volume, 12mo. .... $2.50 

LANDBIN.— A Treatise on Steel: 

Comprising its Theory, Metallurgy, Properties, Practical Working, 
and Use. By M. H. C. Landein, Jr., Civil Engineer. Translated 
from the French, with Notes, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. With an Appendix on the Bessemer and the Martin Processes 
for Manufacturing Steel, from the Report of Abram S. Hewitt, United 
States Commissioner to the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. In one 
volume, 12mo. $3.00 

LARKIN.— The Practical Brass and Iron Founder's 
Guide : 

A Concise Treatise on Brass Founding, Moulding, the Metals and their 
Alloys, etc. : to which are added Recent Improvements in the Manu- 
facture of Iron, Steel by the Bessemer Process, etc., etc. By James 
Lark IN, late Conductor of the Brass Foundry Department in Reany, 
Neafie & Co's. Penn Woi'ks, Philadelphia. Fifth edition, revised, 
with Extensive additions. In one volume, 12mo, . . $2.25 

LEAVITT.— Facts about Peat as an Article of Fuel : 

With Remarks upon its Origin and Composition, the Localities in 
which it is found, the Methods of Preparation and Manufacture, and 
the varioiis Uses to which it is applicable ; together with many other 
matters of Practical and Scientific Interest. To which is added a chap- 
ter on the Utilization of Coal Dust with Peat for the Production of an 
Excellent Fuel at Moderate Cost, siDecially adapted for Steam Service. 
By T. II. Leavitt. Third edition. 12mo. . . . $1.75 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 13 

LEROITX, C. — A Practical Treatise on the Manufac- 
ture of Worsteds and Carded Yarns : 

Comiirising Practical Mechanics, with Rules and Calculations applied 
to Spinning; Sorting, Cleaning, and Scouring Wools; the English 
and French methods of Combing, Drawing, and Spinning Worsteds 
ami Manufacturing Carded Yarns. Translated from the French of 
Charles Leroux, Mechanical Engineer, and Superintendent of a 
Spinning Mill, by HoKxVTio Paine, M. D., and A. A. Fesquet, 
Chemist and Engineer. Illustrajted by 12 large Plates. To which is 
added an Appendix, containing extracts from the Reports of the Inter- 
national Jury, and of the Artisans selected by the Committee appointed 
by the Council of the Society of Arts, London, on Woollen and Worsted 
Machinery ami Fabrics, as exhibited in the Paris Universal Exposi- 
tion, 1867. 8vo., cloth $5.00 

LESLIE (Miss).— Complete Cookery: 
Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches. By Miss Leslie. 
60th thousand. Thoroughly revised, with the addition of New Re- 
ceipts. In one volume, 12mo., cloth $1.50 

LESLIE (Miss).— Ladies' House Book : 
A Manual of Domestic Economy. 20tli revised edition. 12mo., cloth. 

LESLIE (Miss). — Two Hundred Beeeipts in French 
Cookery. 

Cloth, 12mo. 

LIEBER.— Assayer's Guide : 

Or, Practical Directions to Assayers, Miners, and Smelters, for the 
Tests and Assays, by Heat and by Wet Processes, for the Ores of all 
the principal Metals, of Gold and Silver Coins and Alloys, and of 
Coal, etc. By Oscak M. Lieber. 12mo., cloth. . . $1.25 

LOTH.— The Practical Stair Builder: 

A Complete Treatise on the Art of Building Stairs and Hand-Rails, 
Designed for (Carpenters, Builders, and Stair-Builders. Illustrated 
with Thirty Original Plates. By C. Edward Loth, Professional 
Stair-Builder. One large 4to. volume. .... $10.00 

LOVE.— The Ai-t of Dyeing, Cleaning, Scouring, and 
Finishing, on the Most Approved English and 
French Methods: 

Being Practical Instructions in Dyeing Silks, Woollens, and Cottons, 
Feathers, Chips, Straw, etc. Scouring and Cleaning Bed and Window 
Curtains, Carpets, Hugs, etc. French and Englisli Cleaning, any 
Color or Fabric of Silk, Satin, or Damask. By Thomas Love, "a 
Working Dyer and Scourer. Second American Edition, to which are 
added General Instructions for the Use of Aniline Colors. In one 
volume, 8vo., 343 pages. $5.00 



14 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE, 

MAIN and BROWN.— Questions on Subjects Con- 
nected with the Marine Steam-Engine : 

And Examination Papers ; with Hints for tlieir Solution. By Thomas 
J. Main, Professor of Mathematics, Royal Naval College, and Thomas 
Bkown, Chief Engineer, R. N. 12mo., cloth. . . . $1.50 

MAIN and BROWN.— The Indicator and Dynamo- 
meter : 

With their Practical Applicationsrfo the Steam-Engine. By Thomas 
J. Main, M. A. F. R., Assistant Professor Royal Naval College, Ports- 
mouth, and Thomas Bkown, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Chief Engineer, R. 
N., attached to the Royal Naval College. Illustrated. From the 
Fourth London Edition. 8vo $1.50 

MAIN and BROWN.— The Marine Steam-Eng'ine. 

By Thomas J. Main, F. R. ; Assistant S. Mathematical Professor at 
the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and Thomas Brown, Assoc. 
Inst. C. E., Chief Engineer R. N. Attached to the Royal Naval Col- 
lege. Authors of " Questions connected with the Marine Steam-En- 
gine," and the " Indicator and Dynamometer." With numerous Illus- 
trations. In one volume, 8vo. $5.00 

MARTIN.— Screw-Cutting Tables, for the Use of Me- 
chanical Engineers : 

Showing the Proper Arrangement of Wheels for Cutting the Threads 
of Screws of any required Pitch ; with a Table for Making the Uni- 
versal Gas-Pipe Thread and Taps. By W. A. Maktin, Engineer. 
8vo 50 

Mechanics' (Amateur) Workshop: 
A treatise containing jjlain and concise directions for the manipula- 
tion of Wood and Metals, including Casting, Forging, Brazing, Sol- 
dering, and Carpentry. By the author of the " Lathe and its Uses." 
Third edition. Illustrated. 8vo $3.00 

MOLESWORTH.— Pocket-Book of Useful Formulas 
and Memoranda for Civil and Mechanical Engi- 
neers. 
By GuiLFOKD L. MOLESWOTLTH, Member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, Chief Resident Engineer of the Ceylon Railway. Second 
American, from the Tenth London Edition. In one volume, full 
bound in pocket-book form $2.00 

NAPIER. — A System of Chemistry Applied to Dyeing. 

By James Napier, F. C. S. A New and Thoroughly Revised Edi- 
tion. Completely broiight up to the present state of the Science, incl u- 
ding the Chemistry of Coal Tar Colors, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist 
and Engineer. With an Appendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as 
shown at the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. Illustrated. Iiione 
V^olume, 8vo., 422 pages $5.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 15 

NAPIER.— Manual of Electro-Metallurgy : 

Inchuling the Application of the Art to jManufaeturiiig Processes. By 
James ^S'apiek. Fourth Aineriean, from the FourthLoiuloii eilition, 
revisedaiid euUirged. Illustrated by engravings. Inone vol., 8vo. $2.00 

NASON.— Table of Reactions for Qualitative Chemical 
Analysis. 
By Henry B. Nason, Professor of Chemistry in the Rensselaer Poly- 
technic Institute, Troy, New York. Illustrated by Colors. . 63 

NEWBERY.— Gleanings from Ornamental Art of 
every style : 
Drawn from Examples in the British, South Kensington, Indian, 
Crystal Palace, anc' Hher iluseum.s, the Exhibitions of ISul and \^(i'2, 
and the best Eng!:„a and Foreign works. In a series of one hundred 
exquisitely drawn Plates, containing many hundred examples. By 
Robert Newbery. 4to $15.00 

NICHOLSON.— A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding : 

Containing full instructions in the different Branches of Forwarding, 
Gilding, and Finishing. Also, the Art of Marbling Book-edges and 
Paper. By James B.'Nicholsox. Illustrated. iL'mo., cloth. $2.25 

NICHOLSON.— The Carpenter's New Guide: 

A Complete Book of Lines for Carpenters and Joiners. By Peter 
Nicholson. The whole carefully and thoroughly revised by II. K. 
Davis, and containing numerous new and improved and original De- 
signs for Roofs, Domes, etc: By Samuel Sloan, Architect. Illus- 
trated by 80 plates. 4to. $4-50 

NORRIS.— A Hand-book for Locomotive Engineers 
and Machinists: 
Comprising the Proportions and Calculations for Constructing Loco- 
motives; Manner of Setting Valves; Tables of Squares, Cubes, Areas, 
etc., etc. By Septimus Norris, Civil and Mechanical Engineer. 
New edition. Illustrated. 12mo., cloth $2.00 

NYSTROM.— On Technological Education, and the 
Construction of Ships and Screw Propellers : 
For Naval and :Marine Engineers. By John W. Nystrom, late Act- 
ing Chief Engineer, U. S. N. Second edition, revised with additional 
matter. Illustrated by seven engravings. 12nio. . . $1.50 

O'NEILL.— A Dictionary of Dyeing and Calico Print- 
ing: 
Containing a brief account of all the Substances and Processes in u.se 
in the Art of Dyeing and Printing Textile Fabrics; with Practical 
Receipts and Scientific Information. By CiiARLES O'Xeii.l, Ana- 
lytical Chemist ; Fellow of the Chemical Society of London ; Member 
of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; Author of 
"Chemistry of Calico Printing and Dyeing." To which is added an 
Essay on Coal Tar Colors and their application to Dyeing and Calico 
Printing. By A. A. Fksqi'ET, Chemist and Engineer. With an Ap- 

Sendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as sliown at the Universal 
Ixposition, Paris, 1807. In one volume, Svo., 491 pages. . $6.00 



16 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

ORTON.— Underground Treasures : 

How and Where to Find Them. A Key for the Ready Determination 
of all the Useful Minerals within the United States. By James 
Okton, a. M. Hlustrated, 12mo : $1.50 

OSBORN, — American Mines and Mining: 

Theoretically and Practically Considered, By Prof. H. S. OSBOEN. 
Hlustrated by numerous engravings. 8vo. {In preparation,) 

OSBORN,— The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel : 

Theoretical and Practical in all its Branches ; with special reference 
to American Materials and Processes. By H. S. Osborn, LL, D., 
Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in Lafayette College, Easton, 
Pennsylvania. Illustrated by numerous large folding plates and 
wood-engravings. 8vo. $15.00 

OVERMAIir.— The Manufacture of Steel : 

Containing the Practice and Principles of Working and Making Steel. 
A Handbook for Blacksmiths and Workers in Steel and Iron, Wagon 
Makers, Die Sinkers, Cutlers, and Manufacturers of Files and Hard- 
ware, of Steel and Iron, and for Men of Science and Art. By Fred- 
erick Overman, Mining Engineer, Author of the " Manufacture of 
Iron," etc. A new, enlarged, and revised Edition. By A. A. Fesquet, 
Chemist and Engineer $1.50 

OVERMAW.— The Moulder and Founder's Pocket 
Guide : 

A Treatise on Moulding and Founding in Green-sand, Dry-sand, Loam, 
and Cement; the Moulding of Machine Frames, Mill-gear, Hollow- 
ware, Ornaments, Trinkets, Bells, and Statues ; Description of Moulds 
for Iron, Bronze, Brass, and other Metals ; Plaster of Paris, Sulphur, 
Wax, and other articles commonly used in Casting ; the Construction 
of Melting Furnaces, the Melting and Founding of Metals ; the Com- 
position of Alloys and their Nature. With an Appendix containing 
Receipts for Alloys, Bronze, Varnishes and Colors for Castings ; also, 
Tables on the Strength and other qualities of Cast Metals. By Fred- 
erick Overman, Mining Engineer, Author of " The Manufacture 
of Iron." With 42 Illustrations. 12mo $1.50 

Painter, Gilder, and Varnisher's Companion : 

Containing Rules and Regulations in everything relating to the Arts 
of Painting, Gilding, Varnishing, Glass-Staining, Graining, Marbli^, 
Sign-Writing, Gilding on Glass, and Coach Painting and Varnishing ; 
Tests for the Detection of Adulterations in Oils, Colors, etc. ; and a 
Statement of the Diseases to which Painters are peculiarly liable, with 
the Simplest and Best Remedies. Sixteenth Edition. Revised, with 
an Appendix. Containing Colors and Coloring -Theoretical and 
Practical. Comprising descriptions of a great variety of Additional 
Pigments, their Qualities and Uses, to which are added, Dryers, and 
Modes and Operations of Painting, etc. Together with Chevreul's 
Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors. 12mo., cloth. $1,50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 17 

PALLETT— The Miller's, Millwright's, and Engineer's 
Guide. 
By Hexky Pallett. Illustrated. In one volume, 12mo. $3.00 

PERCY.— The Manufacture of Russian Sheet-Iron. 

By JouN Percy, M.D., F.R.S., Lecturer on Metallurgy at the Royal 
School of Mines, and to The Advanced Class of Artillery OtKeers at 
the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich ; Author of" Metallurgy." 
AV'ith Illustrations. 8vo., paper 50 cts. 

PERKINS.— Gas and Ventilation. 

Practical Treatise on Gas and Ventilation. With Special Relation to 
Illuminating, Heating, and Cooking by Gas. Including Scientific 
Helps to Engineer-students and others. With Illustrated Diagrams. 
By E. E. Pekkins. 12mo., cloth $l.i>5 

PERKINS and STOWE.— A New Guide to the Sheet- 
iron and Boiler Plate Roller : 

Containing a Series of Tables showing the Weight of Slabs and Piles 
to produce Boiler Plates, and of the Weight of Piles and the Sizes of 
Bars to produce Sheet-iron ; the Thickness of the Bar Gauge in 
decimals ; the Weight per foot, and the Thickness on the Bar or Wire 
Gauge of the fractional parts of an inch ; the AVeight per sheet, and 
the Thickness on the Wire Gauge of Slieet-iron of various dimensions 
to weigh 112 lbs. per bundle; and the conversion of Short Weight 
into Long Weight, and Long Weight into Short. Estimated and col- 
lected by G. H. Pekkins and J. G. Stowe $2.50 

PHILLIPS and DARLINGTON.— Records of Mining 
and Metallurgy ; 

Or Facts and Memoranda for the Tise of the Mine Agent and Smelter. 
By J. Arthur Phillips, Mining Engineer, Graduate of the Imperial 
School of Mines, France, etc., and John Darlington. Illustrated 
by numerous engravings. In one volume, 12mo. . . $2.00 

PROTEATJX,— Practical Guide for the Manufacture 
of Paper and Boards. 

By A. Proteaux, Civil Engineer, and Graduate of the School of .\rts 
and Manufactures, and Director of Thiers' Paper Mill, Puy-de-Dume. 
With additions, by L. S. Le Normand. Translated from the French, 
with Notes, by Horatio Paine, A. B., M. D. To which is added a 
Chapter on tlie Manufocture of Paper from Wood in the United 
States, by Henry T. Brown, of the " American Artisan." Illus- 
trated by six plates, containing Drawings of Raw Materials, ilnclii- 
nery. Plans of Paper-Mills, etc., etc. 8vo $10.00 

REGNATJLT.— Elements of Chemistry. 
By M. V. Regnault. Translated from the French by T. Forrest 
Betton, M. D., and edited, with Notes, by James C. Booth, Melter 
and Refiner U. S. Mint, and Wm. L. Faber, Metallurgist and Mining 
Engineer. Illustrated by nearly 700 wood engravings. Comprising 
nearly 1500 pages. In two volumes, 8vo., cloth. . . . $7.50 



18 HENEY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

REID. — A Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of 
Portland Cement : • 

By Heney Reid, C. E. To whicli is added a Translation of M. A 
Lipowitz's Work, describing a New Method adopted in Germany for 
Manufacturing that Cement, by W. F. Reid. Illustrated by plates 
and wood engravings. 8vo $6.00 

EIFPAULT, VERGNAUD, and TOUSSAINT.— A 
Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of Var- 
nishes. 

By MM. RiFFATTLT, Vekgistatid, and ToTJSSAiNT. Revised and 
Edited by M. F. Malepeyke and Dr. Emil Winckleb. Illustrated. 
In one volume, 8vo. {In preparation.) 

BIPPAULT, VERGNAUD, and TOUSSAINT.— A 
Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of Colors 
for Painting: 

Containing the best Formulae and the Processes the Newest and in 
most General Use. By M M. Riffatjlt, Vergnaud, and TousSAiNT. 
Revised and Edited by M. F. Malepeyre and Dr. Emil Winckler. 
Translated from the French by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. Illustrated by Engravings, In one volume, 650 pages, 8vo. 

$7.50 

BOBINSON.— Explosions of Steam Boilers: 

How they are Caused, and how they may be Prevented. By J. R. 
Robinson, Steam Engineer. 12mo $1.25 

ROPER. — ^^A Catechism of High Pressure or Non- 
Condensing Steam-Engines : 

Including the Modelling, Constructing, Running, and Management 
of Steam Engines and Steam Boilers. With Illustrations. By 
Stephen Roper, Engineer. FuU bound tucks . . • $2.00 

ROSELEUR. — Galvanoplastic Manipulations : 

A Practical Guide for the Gold and Silver Electro-plater and the 
Galvanoplastic Operator. Translated from the French of Alfred 
Roselettr, Chemist, Professor of the Galvanoplastic Art, Manufactu- 
rer of Chemicals, Gold and Silver Electro-plater. By A. A. Fesquet, 
Chemist and Engineer. Illustrated by over 127 Engravings on wood. 

8vo., 495 pages §6.00 

y^^This Treatise is the fullest and by far the best on this subject ever 
published in the United States. 

SCHIWZ.— Researches on the Action of the Blast 
Furnace. 
By Charles Schinz. Translated from the German with the special 
permission of the Author by William H. Maw and MORITZ Mdl- 
LER. With an Appendix written by the Author expressly for this 
edition. Illustrated by seven plates, containing 28 figures. In one 
volume, 12mo. $4.25 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 19 

SHAW.— Civil Architecture : 

Being a Complete Theoretical and Practical Sj'stem of Buildinsr, con- 
taining the Fuudamental Principles of the Art. By Edward Suaw, 
Architect. To which is added a Treatise ou Gothic Architecture, etc. 
By Thomas W. Silloway and Geokge M. IIaedixg, Architects. 
The whole illustrated by One Hundred and Two quarto plates finely 
engraved on copper. Eleventh Edition. 4to., cloth. . $10.00 

SHUNK.— A Practical Treatise on Railway Curves 
and Location, for Young Engineers. 
By William F. Shtxe, Civil Engineer. 12ino. . . $2.00 

SLOAN. — American Houses : 

A variety of Original Designs for Rural Buildings. Illustrated by 26 
colored Engravings, with Descriptive References. By SAMUEL Sloan, 
Architect, author of the " Model Architect," etc., etc. Svo. §2.50 

SMEATON.— Builder's Pocket Companion: 

Containing the Elements of Building, Surveying, and Architecture; 
with Practical Rules and Instructions connected with the subject. 
By A. C. Smeaton, Civil Engineer, etc. In one volume, 12mo. $1.50 

SMITH.— A Manual of Political Economy. 
By E. Peshine Smith. A new Edition, to which is added a full 
Index. 12mo., cloth $1.25 

SMITH.— Parks and Pleasure Grounds: 
Or Practical Xotes on Country Residences, Villas, Public Parks, and 
Gardens. By Charles H. J. Smith, Landscape Gardener and 
Garden Architect, etc., etc. 12mo. $2.25 

SMITH.— The Dyer's Instructor: 

Comprising Practical Instructions in the Art of Dyeing Silk, Cotton, 
Wool, and Worsted, and Woollen Goods : containing nearly 800 
Receipts. To which is added a Treatise on the Art of Padding; and 
tlie Printing of Silk Warps, Skeins, and Handkerchiefs, and the 
various Mordants and Colors for the different styles of such work. 
By David Smith, Pattern Dyer. 12mo., cloth. . , . $3.00 

SMITH.— The Practical Dyer's Guide: 

Comprising Practical Instructions in the Dyeing of Shot Cobourgs, 
Silk Striped Orleans, Colored Orleans from Black Warps, Ditto from 
White Warps, Colored Cobourgs from White Warps, Merinos, Yarns, 
Woollen Cloths, etc. Containing nearly .300 Receipts, to most of which 
a Dyed Pattern is annexed. Also, A I'reatise on the Art of Padding. 
By David Smith. In one volume, Svo. Price. . . $25.00 

STEWART.— The American System. 

Speeches on the Tariff Question, and on Internal Improvements, princi- 
pally delivered in the House of Representatives of tlie United States. 
By Andrew Stewart, late M. C. from Pennsylvania. With a Portrait, 
and a Biographical Sketch. In one volume, 8vo., 407 pages. $3.00 



20 HENEY CAE,EY BAIED'S CATALOGUE. 

STOKES. — Cabinet-maker's and Upholsterer's Com- 
panion : 
Comprising the Rudiments and Principles of Cabinet-making and Up- 
holstery, with Familiar Instructions, illustrated by Examples for 
attaining a Proficiency in the Art of Drawing, as applicable to Cabi- 
net-work ; the Processes of Veneering, Inlaying, and Buhl-work ; the 
Art of Dyeing and Staining Wood, Bone, Tortoise Shell, etc. Direc- 
tions for Lackering, Japanning, and Varnishing; to make French 
Polish ; to prepare the Best Glues, Cements, and Compositions, and a 
number of Receipts particularly useful for workmen generally. By 
J. Stokes. In one volume, 12mo, With Illustrations. . $1.25 

Strength and other Properties of Metals: 

Reports of Experiments on the Strength and other Properties of Metals 
for Cannon. With a Description of the Machines for testing Metals, 
and of the Classification of Cannon in service. By Ofiicers of the Ord- 
nance Department U. S. Army. By authority of the Secretary of War. 
Illustrated by 25 large steel plates. In one volume, 4to. . • $10.00 

SULLIVAN. — Protection to Native Industry. 
By Sir Edwaed Sullivan, Baronet, author of " Ten Chapters on 
Social Reforms." In one volume, 8vo $1.50 

Tables Showing the Weight of Round, Square, and 
Mat Bar Iron, Steel, etc.. 
By Measurement. Cloth 63 

TAYLOR.— Statistics of Coal : 

Including Mineral Bituminous Substances employed in Arts and 
Manufactures ; with their Geographical, Geological, and Commercial 
Distribution and Amount of Production and Consumption on the 
American Continent. With Incidental Statistics of the Iron Manu- 
facture. By R. C. Taylok. Second edition, revised by S. S. Hal- 
DEMAN. Illustrated by five Maps and many wood engravings. 8vo., 
cloth $10.00 

TEMPLETON.— The Practical Examinator on Steam 
and the Steam-Engine : 

With Instructive References relative thereto, arranged for the Use of 
Engineers, Students, and others. By Wm. Templeton, Engineer. 
12mo $1.25 

THOMAS.— The Modern Practice of Photography, 

By R. W. Thomas, F. C. S. 8vo., cloth 75 

THOMSON.—Freight Charges Calculator. 

By Andrew Thomson, Freight Agent. 24mo. . . . $1.25 

TURNING: Specimens of Fancy Turning Executed 
on the Hand or Foot Lathe: 

With Geometric, Oval, and Eccentric Chucks, and Elliptical Cutting 
Frame. By an Amateur. Illustrated by 30 exquisite Photographs. 
4to $3.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 21 

Turner's (The) Companion: 
Coiitaiuing Instructions in Concentric, Elliptic, and Eccentric Turn- 
ing : also various Plates of Chucks, Tools, and Instruments ; and Di- 
rections for using the Eccentric Cutter, Drill, Vertical Cutter, and 
Circular Rest ; with Patterns and Instructions for working them. A 
new edition in one volume, 12mo. $1.50 

URBIN.— BRTJLL.— A Practical Guide for Puddling 

Iron and Steel. 

By Ed. Ukbix, Engineer of Arts and Manufactures, A Prize Essay 

read before the Association of Engineers, Graduate of the School of 

Mines, of Liege, Belgium, at the Meeting of lSG5-t>. To which is added 

A COMPAMSOX OF THE RESISTING PKOPEKTIES OF IROX AND STEEL. 

By A. BnuLL. Translated from the French by A. A. Fesquet, Che- 
mist and Engineer. In one volume, 8vo $1.U0 

VAILE. — Galvanized Iron Cornice-Worker's Manual; 

Containing Instructions in Laying out the Diii'erent Mitres, and Ma- 
king Patterns for all kinds of Plain and Circular Work. Also, Tables 
of Weights, Areas and Circumferences of Circles, and other Mattel- 
calculated to Benefit the Trade. By Ciiaeles A. Vaile, Superin- 
tendent " Richmond Cornice Works," Richmond, Indiana. Illustra- 
ted by 21 Plates. In one volume, 4to ij'o.OO 

VILLE.— The School of Chemical Manures : 
Or, Elfemeutarj^ Principles in the L'se of Fertilizing Agents. From the 
French of M. George Ville, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. With Illustrations. In one volume, 12 mo. . . 5^^1.25 

VOGDES.— The Architect's and Builder's Pocket Com- 
panion and Price Book: 
Consisting of a Short but Comprehensive Epitome of Decimals, Duo- 
decimals, Geometry and Mensuration; with Tables of U. S. Measures, 
Sizes, Weights, Strengths, etc., of Iron, Wood, Stone, and various 
other Materials, Quantities of Materials in Given Sizes, and Dimen- 
sions of Wood, Brick, and Stone ; and a full and complete Bill of 
Prices for Carpenter's Work ; also, Rules lor Computing and Valuing 
Brick and Brick Work, Stone Work, Painting, Plastering, etc. By 
Frank W. Vogdes, Architect. Illustrated. Full bound in pocket- 
book form. $2.00 

Bound in cloth 1-50 

WARN.— The Sheet-Metal Worker's Instructor: 
For Zinc, Sheet-Iron, Copper, and Tin-Plate Workers, etc. Contain- 
ing a selection of Geometrical Problems ; also. Practical and Sinii)le 
Rules for describing the various Patterns recjuired in the diflerenc 
branches of the above Trades. Bv Reuben H. Warn, Practical Tiu- 
plate Worker. To which is adde'd an Appendix, containing Instruc- 
tions for Boiler Making, Mensuration of Surfaces and Solids, Rules for 
Calculating the Weights of different Figures of Iron and Steel, Tables 
of the Weights of Iron, Steel, etc. Illustrated by 32 Plates and 37 
Wood Engravings. 8vo. $3.00 



22 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

WARNER. — New Theorems, Tables, and Diagrams 
for the Computation of Earth-Work : 

Designed for the use of Engineers in Preliminary and Final Estimates, 
of Students in Engineering, and of Contractors and other non-profes- 
sional Computers. In Two Parts, with an Appendix. Part I. — A 
Practical Treatise ; Part II. — A Theoretical Treatise ; and the Appen- 
dix. Containing Notes to the Rules and Examples of Part I. ; Expla- 
nations of the Construction of Scales, Tables, and Diagrams, and a 
Treatise upon Equivalent Square Bases and Equivalent Level Heights. 
The whole illustrated by numerous original Engravings, comprising 
Explanatory Cuts for Definitions and Problems, Stereometric Scales 
and Diagrams, and a Series of Lithographic Drawings from Models, 
showing all the Combinations of Solid Forms which occur in Railroad 
Excavations and Embankments. By John Waenee, A. M., Mining 
and Mechanical Engineer. 8to $5.00 

WATSON.— A Manual of the Hand-Lathe: 

Comprising Concise Directions for working Metals of all kinds. Ivory, 
Bone and Precious Woods ; Dyeing, Coloring, and French Polishing ; 
Inlaying by Veneers, and various methods practised to produce Elabo- 
rate work with Dispatch, and at Small Expense. By Egbert P. 
Watson, late of " The Scientific American," Author of " The Modern 
Practice of American Machinists and Engineers." Illustrated by 78 
Engravings $1.50 

WATSON.— The Modern Practice of American Ma- 
chinists and Engineers : 

Including the Construction, Application, and Use of Drills, Lathe 
Tools, Cutters for Boring Cylinders, and Hollow Work Generally, 
with the most Economical Speed for the same ; the Results verified by 
Actual Practice at the Lathe, the Vice, and on the Floor. Together 
with Workshop Management, Economy of Manufacture, the Stearn- 
Engine, Boilers, Gears, Belting, etc., etc. By Egbert P. Watson, 
late of the " Scientific American." Illustrated by 86 Engravings. In 
one volume, 12mo $2.50 

Watson.— The Theory and Practice of the Art of 
Weaving by Hand and Power : 

With Calculations and Tables for the use of those connected with the 
Trade. By John Watson, Manufacturer and Practical Machine 
Maker. Illustrated by large Drawings of the best Power Looms. 
8vo $10.00 

WEATHERLY.— Treatise on the Art of Boiling Su- 
gar, Crystallizing, Lozenge-making, Comfits, Gum 
Goods. 
12mo $2.00 

WEDDING.— The Metallurgy of Iron ; 

Theoretically and Practically Considered. By Dr. HERMANN WED- 
DING, Professor of tlie Metallurgy of Iron at the Royal Mining 
Academy, Berlin. Translated by Julius Du Mont, Bethlehem, Pa. 
Illustrated by 207 Engravings on Wood, and three Plates. Jja. one 
volume, 8vo. {In press.) 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 23 

WILL. — Tables for Qualitative Chemical Analysis. 

By Professor Heinrich Will, of Giessen, Germany. Seventh edi- 
tion. Translated by Charles F. Himes, Ph. D., Professor of Natu- 
ral Science, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. , . . $1.50 

WILLIAMS.— On Heat and Steam : 

Embracing New Views of Vaporization, Condensation, and Explosions. 
By Charles Wye Williams, A. I. C. E. Illustrated. 8vo. $3.50 

WOHLER. — A Hand-Book of Mineral Analysis. 

By F. Wohler, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Giittin- 
gen. Edited by Henry B. Nason, Professor of Chemistry in tlie 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. Illustrated. In 
one volume, 12mo $3 00 

WORSSAM.— On Mechanical Saws: 

From the Transactions of the Society of Engineers, 1869. By S. W. 
WoRSSAM, Jr. Illustrated by 18 large jjlates. 8vo. . . $t).M 



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